beating

Chris Kreider and Beckett Sennecke scored goals, Lukas Dostal survived a barrage of shots in the final minutes, and the Ducks beat the Dallas Stars 3-1 on Tuesday night to end a nine-game skid.

Jacob Trouba also scored for the Ducks, and Dostal stopped 24 shots — many of them from point-blank range after Dallas pulled the goalie twice in the final minutes. The Ducks were 0-8-1 since a 4-1 win against Columbus on Dec. 20.

Roope Hintz scored for Dallas and Casey DeSmith had 22 saves. The Stars lost for the fourth time in six games (2-2-2).

Hintz’s snap shot from the slot with a man advantage pulled the Stars to 2-1 with 2:12 left in the third, but Trouba sealed the Ducks’ win with an empty-netter the length of the ice with 20.5 seconds remaining.

The Ducks had given up five goals or more in each of their last five games, and they played one of the NHL’s best teams without their three top point scorers in Leo Carlsson, Troy Terry and Cutter Gauthier, who sat out because of injury or illness.

But they rediscovered some of their early-season mojo, out-skating, out-hitting and out-hustling the Stars for much of the game and taking advantage of a delayed penalty call on Kyle Capobianco to score their first goal in the second period.

Dostal skated to the bench, giving the Ducks a man advantage. Mikael Granlund took a blue-line pass from Radko Gudas at the bottom of the right circle and found a wide-open Kreider, who beat DeSmith stick-side with a snap shot from the high slot for a 1-0 lead 3:36 into the period.

The Ducks appeared to push the lead to 2-0 when Alex Killorn took a spectacular backhand pass from Ryan Poehling and scored a shorthanded goal with 39.8 seconds left in the second, but Poehling crashed into DeSmith and into the net, and the goal was waved off because of interference.

With 7:58 left in the third, Sennecke gathered the rebound of Granlund’s shot that caromed off the end board and toward the left post. Sennecke shielded himself from a defender and backhanded an unassisted goal past DeSmith for a 2-0 lead.

Through a near-perfect nonconference slate, no matter what was thrown USC’s way, whether injuries or other unforeseen circumstances, the Trojans had never lacked for life on the court. It was that endless energy that had helped power them to a 10-1 start.

But for a while Wednesday, that vigor was conspicuously absent against Texas San Antonio, a team that lost four of its last five. Maybe it was the setting, in a mostly empty and eerily quiet Galen Center. Maybe it was the “devastating” news from earlier in the day, as USC announced that point guard Rodney Rice would undergo shoulder surgery and miss the rest of the season.

Whatever it was, USC was eventually able to shake it off Wednesday night, turning a deficit late in the first half to a convincing, 97-70 victory over San Antonio in the second.

The blip, however brief, would beg questions of how a short-handed roster might handle the brutal Big Ten slate that awaits USC in two weeks’ time. The Trojans start that stretch with an especially savage span that includes three top-10 teams in No. 2 Michigan, No. 9 Michigan State and No. 6 Purdue. Whether they can weather that stretch without three players coaches expected to be top contributors should say a lot about where the Trojans are headed this season.

Chad Baker-Mazara reacts after scoring on an offensive rebound in the first half.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“Without them, we’re going to have to grind and play so hard to win games,” coach Eric Musselman said. “We have a lot to clean up, and we have to exceed the opposition from a playing-hard standpoint. We’re undermanned. We don’t have Alijah Arenas. We don’t have Rodney Rice. And we don’t have Amarion Dickerson. That’s a lot.”

That grind was the focus of Musselman’s message to his team at halftime Wednesday, after USC had come out looking unusually lifeless. Through the game’s first 15 minutes, the Trojans were outhustled and outworked on the glass as the Roadrunners drew fouls, forced turnovers and racked up seven early offensive rebounds.

With 3:38 remaining in the first half, they were still trailing the 4-6 Roadrunners, who in their last two had lost to Alabama by 42 and Colorado by 24.

But when the Trojans finally turned it on, in the final minutes of the first half, there was no stopping the onslaught. Ryan Cornish hit a jumper. Ezra Ausar took a steal to the hoop. Chad Baker-Mazara dunked home a missed three. USC finished the first half on a 13-0 run and took control from there.

It did so in the same fashion it had in pretty much every game since Rice went down, by leaning on Baker-Mazara and Ausar, who are averaging a combined 38 points per game.

Both emerged like a shot of adrenaline after halftime. Mazara poured in 17 second-half points to give him 20 total for the game, while Ausar, the nation’s leader in free-throw attempts, continued bullying defenders in the paint.

Ausar finished with a game-high 22 points and added 10 rebounds, giving him his first double-double of the season.

“My energy is contagious, and humbly, once I’m going, everybody is going,” Ausar said. “If my energy ain’t right, my team’s energy ain’t right.”

He’ll be especially critical next month, with a series of bruising Big Ten frontcourts awaiting the Trojans.

“Ezra is going to keep getting better,” Musselman said. “His basketball future is so bright. He hasn’t even tipped what he’s going to be. … We’re gonna rely on Ezra to keep this group together and be a leader, and he’s done that.”

Arenas returns to practice in the coming days and will hopefully be ready to go by mid-January. Others will have to make the mark, until then, if USC hopes to survive that stretch short-handed.

Against San Antonio, it was Cornish who answered the call. The Dartmouth transfer had played more than 15 minutes in a game just once this season before Wednesday. But in his first start at point guard, Cornish came alive with 18 points, including four three-pointers.

“He was at the bottom of the roster almost, and he’s earned what he’s getting,” Musselman said. “We need people to step up, and we need to develop our roster the best that we possibly can, and Ryan’s a great example of someone stepping up.”