ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Blue Jackets goaltender Mathieu Garon spent last night stopping pucks. His teammates, meanwhile, were busy saving face.

Garon and the Jackets rebounded from a dreadful game in Los Angeles to earn a 5-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks in Honda Center. The victory helped ease the sting from a trying three-game trip that included a 6-0 loss to the Kings on Monday. 

"This was big for us after a game like (Monday) night," defenseman Fedor Tyutin said. "We looked at ourselves in the mirror and didn't feel too good about ourselves and the team play. Today, I thought we were much better."

The short-handed Jackets got goals from Derek Dorsett, Jake Voracek, Tyutin, Antoine Vermette and Derick Brassard to snap a five-game losing streak. Tyutin, Voracek and Vermette all enjoyed three-point nights.

Garon, meanwhile, made 36 saves, including 17 in the third period as the Ducks scored twice to draw within a goal.

But this game was less about creating highlights and more about atoning for lowlights. The Jackets managed just 11 shots in their loss to the Kings and they weren't much better against San Jose, falling 2-1, on Saturday.
 
There just wasn't a lot of pushback when adversity confronted them.

"(Monday) was a joke a little bit," Brassard said. "That's what is great about hockey. You can play 24 hours later and make up for it."

Playing without Rick Nash (lower-body injury) and Kristian Huselius (wrist) the Jackets excelled on special teams. They were 3-of-6 on the power play and killed all seven penalties.

They also stood up to the rugged Ducks. Dorsett set the tone early.

He left a first-period goal celebration already in progress to trade punches with Anaheim's Matt Beleskey who had been jawing with Brassard.

Dorsett's fourth goal of the season could be savored on the plane ride home. His teammate's welfare took precedent.

"When you have a guy like that to stick up for you, it feels really good," Brassard said of Dorsett. "You want to play and battle for the guy and we really battled for each other tonight."

Forward Chris Clark and Tyutin, who rarely drop the gloves, tangled with Mike Brown and Ryan Getzlaf. Tyutin swallowed about four nasty upper cuts late in the second period with the Jackets leading 3-0, but he was back for more in the third.

Schoolyard fights attract larger crowds than this game between two of the league's biggest underachievers. The announced attendance was 13,700 in the half-empty arena.

The Jackets kept the building quiet until Lubomir Visnovsky ended Garon's shutout bit at 9:11 of the third period. Getzlaf added to the intrigue with 5:04 remaining, roofing a shot over Garon's shoulder to make it 3-2.

No advantage has proven rally-proof for the Jackets, who have lost a league-high 10 games when leading after two periods.

"When the game got heated up in the third I wondered how we would respond to things," interim coach Claude Noel said. "I thought we handled it well."

Vermette ended the suspense with a power-play goal in the final two minutes and Brassard added another one.

It was a virtual California goal rush for a club that entered play last night goalless in the previous 99 minutes. Dorsett's goal midway through the first period on the rebound ended the drought, dating to the second period in San Jose.

Garon, starting for the first time since Feb. 14, was sharp throughout. He said playing two-plus periods in place of Steve Mason on Monday helped prepare him.

Perhaps no Jacket had a better bounce-back game than Tyutin, a minus-3 in Los Angeles.

He set up Voracek's power-play goal at 8:14 of the second. Five minutes later, Tyutin followed his own shot like a basketball player to chase goaltender Jonas Hiller from the game.

The Jackets played the final two periods without Derek MacKenzie because of a knee injury.

treed@dispatch.com