What we learned from the Ducks’ 6-4 loss to the San Jose Sharks

Reporting from San Jose —  Bruce Boudreau said he considered all the facts before opting to separate Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry for the better part of the first half of Saturday’s 6-4 loss to the San Jose Sharks.

Getzlaf’s plus/minus was minus-five over the course of the last six games, and he’d been point-less in five of six.

Perry, the team’s goals leader, had one goal to show since Nov. 2 after missing five games with the mumps.

So Boudreau split them up, putting forwards Patrick Marron and Kyle Palmieri on center Getzlaf’s sides, and moving Perry next to second-line center Ryan Kesler.

It didn’t work.

Or maybe it did.

The Ducks fell behind 5-1 being out of sorts, but when Boudreau put the longtime first-line mates back together, they combined to score three goals in 5 minutes, 28 seconds.

Don’t separate Perry and Getzlaf again

Chemistry isn’t always so visible, but when they reunited, their familiarity and ease with each other was tangible.

Getzlaf assisted Perry on goals late in the second period and early in the third, and Perry assisted Getzlaf’s backhanded roof shot 4:20 into the final 20 minutes.

“It wasn’t a pretty first half of the game,” Perry said. “We worked for what we got in the second half. Our job for this hockey club is to go out and be leaders. We hadn’t done that the last couple of games. In the third period, we really took over the hockey game and played the way we wanted to from the start.”

Everyone’s accountable

Getzlaf, the Ducks’ captain, said he didn’t receive an explanation or heads-up from Boudreau about the switch.

“We’re expected to play, there’s no secret to us, we’re not taking things all personal, not going to get all bent out of shape,” Getzlaf said. “The coach expects us to do something. We’ve been not scoring, not producing the last … games.”

Frederik Andersen’s not trending well

The Ducks’ goalie was yanked for the third time in nine games after giving up five goals on 19 shots Saturday.

The first was a shot that bounced off two Ducks’ skates before finding San Jose’s Logan Couture in front of the net, and the second was a Couture breakaway off a lost puck from Ducks defenseman Hampus Lindholm.

But this is the Ducks’ defensive hour of need, with three rookie defensemen on the roster, and the final wall needs to be better.

Backup Jason LaBarbera stopped all 15 shots he faced in relief.

Word of the night: Passion

Boudreau used it often in describing the difference between the sluggish play that defined his team’s 5-1 deficit – a continuation of Friday’s 4-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks – and how the Ducks righted themselves despite coming up short.

“We were getting down, frustrated, a little bit of, ‘Woe is me,’” the coach said. “But then they got mad, and good things happened.”