SALT LAKE CITY — Never mind simply qualifying for the playoffs to end a seven-year drought. A division title is becoming a more realistic goal for the Ducks with each win.

Alex Killorn broke a tie off a scramble at 9:09 of the second period, Lukas Dostal stopped 29 shots and the Ducks beat the Utah Mammoth, 4-1, on Friday night to pad their slim Pacific Division lead.

“I loved the way we competed in the second and third periods,” Killorn told NHL.com. “Not a great start, we’ll work on that. But yeah, it definitely had an excitement to the game.”

After the puck was cleared off the goal line behind goalie Vitek Vanecek, the Ducks’ Beckett Sennecke ended up with it on the left side and slipped a pass to Killorn for a shot before Vanecek was set. Killorn also had two assists.

Ryan Poehling had a goal and an assist, and Cutter Gauthier and Mikael Granlund also scored to help the Ducks (38-27-4, 80 points) rebound from a 3-2 overtime loss to Philadelphia on Wednesday night at Honda Center. With the secondary assist on Gauthier’s goal, John Carlson recorded his first point as a Duck since being acquired in a March 6 trade with the Washington Capitals.

The Ducks moved three points ahead of second-place Edmonton in the division (with a game in hand) and took two of three against Utah to win the season series.

“I think both teams showed the importance of the game, and everybody’s fighting for the same airspace as far as standings go and trying to make the playoffs,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville told NHL.com. “Both teams have been absent (from the Stanley Cup Playoffs) for a while and I think they both want to achieve that goal. And I think no matter who we’re playing, everybody’s going to have some motivation behind them.”

Dylan Guenther scored his 34th goal of the season for Utah – at 1:48 of the first – on the Mammoth’s second shot on goal. Sean Durzi set up the goal with a cross-ice pass, and Guenther scored on a slap shot from down on one knee, beating Dostal over the blocker from the left face-off dot.

Utah (36-28-6, 78 points) outshot the Ducks 14-5 in the first period, with the visitors not logging their first shot on goal until 11:53, but Poehling tied it with 6:23 left in the frame. He took a pass from Killorn on a short-handed breakaway, sped down the left side, cut right and shot against the grain to the left, beating Vanecek on the blocker side with a wrist shot.

“I think the rest of the games [from] here on out are going to be like that,” Poehling told NHL.com. “When you look at the standings, it’s so tight just in our division, and then even with the wild card. So for us to just kind of know that and kind of get a feel for that, it’s not only going to help us in these games, but I think it’ll help us if we eventually get there.”

Killorn said they appreciate what’s in each game, given the tight race. Third-place Vegas is just four points behind the Ducks.

“The points are just huge, right?” Killorn told NHL.com. “Like, especially in the Pacific, we want to kind of stay where we’re at, and we have teams right behind us. And with a win or loss, things can change really quickly. So we value these points highly.”

The Ducks put it away with two empty-net goals. Cutter Gauthier scored his 36th of the season with 1:36 remaining, then Poehling set Granlund up for a wrist shot into the vacated net with 55 seconds left.

“We’re happy with it. I think it puts us in a good spot,” Quenneville told NHL.com. “Last night, we had a favorable day. Tonight, we had to take care of our own business, so I think we did what we had to do.”

Vanecek made 20 saves for the Mammoth, who were playing the opener of a four-game homestand. They had won two straight on the road, beating Dallas, 6-3, on Monday night to snap a four-game losing streak and topping Vegas, 4-0, on Thursday night.

Utah remained six points ahead of the idle Kings for the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference. The Kings hold the second wild card by one point over Seattle and Nashville.

ICE CHIPS

Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas served the fourth game of his five-game suspension for kneeing Auston Matthews in a loss at Toronto on March 12. Matthews tore the medial collateral ligament in his left knee and will miss the rest of the season. … Poehling scored Ducks’ eighth short-handed goal of the season. The Ducks are tied with Carolina for the fourth-most among all NHL teams.

UP NEXT

The Ducks host Buffalo on Sunday at 5 p.m.