ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Detroit Red Wings had the game in hand, and then let it get out of hand.

Their constant trips to the penalty box past the midway point Friday at Honda Center let the Anaheim Ducks gain momentum and erase the Wings’ two-goal lead. The Wings, coming off a feel-good win to start the trip, lost their swagger and lost the game, 6-4.

“Tough loss,” captain Dylan Larkin said. “That’s two games in a row we’ve had a two-goal lead. We started turning the puck over, and got away from — that’s two games in a row we had good first periods, and we got away from that game. This one stings a lot.”

Goalie Alex Lyon had no help in the second half, and the penalty killers had a rough night as the Wings (7-8-1) dropped back below .500.

Defenseman Moritz Seider was in the box when Troy Terry scored four minutes into the third period. The Ducks, near the bottom of the NHL standings, grabbed the lead when rookie Cutter Gauthier scored his first NHL goal at 11:09 and got another boost, from Russ Johnston, 38 seconds later. Alex DeBrincat converted on Detroit’s fourth power play to make it a one-goal game with 3:44 to play. Lyon wasn’t able to skate to the bench until there was just a little more than a minute left.

The good stuff, for the Wings, came in the first half: Marco Kasper scored his first NHL goal and Jonatan Berggren his second in two games. Lucas Raymond put the Wings up by two goals early in the second period, but then they got into trouble late in the period when they strayed from good habits. First, Kasper was called for tripping, and the penalty killers coughed one up to Trevor Zegras. Vladimir Tarasenko took a tripping penalty less than a minute after that, and Lyon had to be sharp, including stopping Alex Killorn when he had half the ice open for a breakaway.

Kasper, who like Berggren was overdue to see a chance go in, finally had one to celebrate. With the Wings on a man advantage after Brett Leason high-sticked Dylan Larkin, the first unit was unable to do much more than chase the puck. Kasper, on the second unit, took a pass from J.T. Compher and scored on a wrist shot from the slot, at 7:58 of the first period. That leveled the deficit the Wings played with from a minute into the period, when Kasper lost a draw in the defensive zone and third-pair defenseman Olen Zellweger wired a slap shot from the top of the right circle past Lyon, who looked like he was expecting the shot to be tipped. Berggren doubled up Detroit’s lead when he finished a pass from Tarasenko while the Wings were on a two-man advantage, late in the first period.