Ducks come back again, maintain perfect shootout record in win over Calgary

ANAHEIM, Calif. – It wasn’t clean or easy, but there’s magic flowing through the Anaheim Ducks’ sticks these days.

The Ducks put together their third consecutive comeback effort with a pair of goals from Cutter Gauthier, and Anaheim kept its shootout record pristine with a pair of nasty moves from Leo Carlsson and Mason McTavish to bolster another stout Lukáš Dostál effort in net, as the Ducks beat Calgary, 3-2, on Sunday at Honda Center.

Anaheim has won five in a row for the third time this season and 12-2-0 in its last 14 games. This was the Ducks’ eighth straight home victory in front of the 12th consecutive sellout home crowd.

“It was a hard game,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Face off after face off, territorially, everybody was fighting for inches. We hung in there. Big power play goal in the third. Some excitement late in the game, and then overtime was exciting, and the shootout–Mac T's moment. Pretty amazing how he makes that move. I still don't know how he does it.”

The Ducks are one of just seven teams in the league without a shootout loss this season, but Anaheim is the only of those seven with more than three shootouts. The Ducks are a remarkable 7-0 in the tiebreaker, with Dostál stopping eight of 11 attempts in his four shootout wins and McTavish a perfect five-for-five with his signature slow-play move.

“I like shootouts,” Dostál said. “Obviously glad it works for me, because obviously it's an extra point that always counts in the end of the season… I work with the guys, they work with me, and it's kind of the bond between us, and because we know what's important when we get to the position, like, we have to capitalize on that.”

The Ducks allowed the opening goal for the third consecutive game and 35th time this season (fourth-most in the league), but Gauthier’s first goal tied the game on a stroke of luck off Calgary goalie Devin Cooley’s shoulder and back in the second period.

Calgary regained the lead later in the second on a power play snipe, but Gauthier answered with his own power-play one-timer in the third period.

After a back-and-forth overtime, the Ducks took the shootout victory.

Dostál made 32 stops, and Cooley stopped 34 shots.

“Anytime we're losing, we always have the belief in this locker room that we can come back and win a game,” Gauthier said. “That was the same tonight.”

Anaheim (33-23-3, 69 points) clawed back within one point of the Pacific Division top spot, as division-leading Vegas (28-18-14, 70 points) was shutout on Sunday. The Ducks have one game in hand on the Knights.

Edmonton (29-24-8, 66 points) fell three points behind Anaheim, who sit ahead with two fewer games played than the Oilers.

The Ducks maintained a four-point gap on Seattle (28-22-9, 65 points) in the second wild card and seven-point gap on Los Angeles (24-21-14, 62 points), which fired coach Jim Hiller on Sunday, and San Jose (29-25-4, 62 points). 

Anaheim continues this crucial seven-game homestand against league-leading Colorado in the first half of a home back-to-back on Tuesday. The New York Islanders come to town on Wednesday.

The Ducks shocked the Avalanche in Denver in January, where Dostál put on a virtuoso performance for the injury-decimated Ducks to hold Colorado to just one goal in an Anaheim shootout win.

Slow Starts Return

It has been the most recurring issue for the Ducks all season. Wins, losses, doesn’t matter – Anaheim has had its fair share of issues getting out of the gate game to game.

The Ducks have allowed the first goal 35 times this season, tied for fourth-most in the league behind Philadelphia (39), Nashville (39) and Vancouver (37) and tied with New Jersey. All four of those teams currently sit outside of playoff spots, with Nashville the closest at three points out of the Western wild cards.

Anaheim has allowed the first goal in each of the first three games coming out of the Olympic break.

“Obviously, you would love to score the first goal, but it's part of the game,” Lukáš Dostál said. “You can get a score at the start of the game, end of the game, and it's just how it has been. We always come up with a faceoff plan, and always try to be ready for the start of the game. They were a really good team, and they scored from the nice play, but I feel the guys, they worked the whole game for 60 minutes and tied up the game in the end and just played the right way.”

What separates the Ducks (and Predators) from that group is that ability to come back. Anaheim is third in the league in comeback victories (17) and fifth in third-period comeback victories (seven). Montreal leads the league in comeback wins (19), and Vegas leads in third-period comeback wins (nine). Nashville is second in both categories (18 comeback wins, eight third-period comeback wins).

It’s an ability the Ducks have fallen back on plenty of times, including a league-leading nine multi-goal comeback victories–the most at this point of a season since the 2005-06 Carolina Hurricanes. Anaheim's 17 comeback wins are its most in a season since 2018-19. The last time a Ducks team had more than 17 was in 2014-15 (24 comeback wins).

However, it’s not a style of play that’s particularly sustainable, especially as the playoff race tightens up and Anaheim can see its first postseason berth in seven seasons on the distant horizon.

“We want to play a solid defensive game and from that create a lot of offense,” Gauthier said. “Coming back from the break, it hasn't been anything like that. It's been a lot of run and gun hockey, and it's been fun hockey, but little things like that is what's gonna cost us later in the season when we need to make a playoff push.”

Making the Cut

In the third period of the first game out of the Olympic break on Wednesday, the Ducks needed an offensive spark, and as he’s wont to do, Joel Quenneville made some changes to his forward lines.

Chief among them now was reuniting Cutter Gauthier and Leo Carlsson and adding Chris Kreider to that line’s left wing. That trio has now been responsible for five goals over the last seven periods of regulation hockey, including two power play goals where that unit remains connected.

Gauthier, in particular, has continued to light it up with a two-goal game on Sunday to mark three goals in three games since the restart and five goals in the last five games.

“He can shoot it, and likes, and shoots it from all over,” Quenneville said. “He gets that element of surprise, the quickness of a shot. It's a little heavier than you might think. He's got a knack for, right now, being in the right area where he doesn't waste and doesn’t ask questions. He's shooting.”

Gauthier is third in the league in shot attempts and didn’t slow down against Calgary with a game-high nine shots.

The 22-year-old’s desire to shoot from anywhere and everywhere benefitted him on his first tally. 

Carlsson took a shot from the slot that deflected high in the air, and Gauthier pulled down the puck inside the right circle. Gauthier took one, two, three whacks at the puck, with the third coming from below the goal line. The shot hit off Calgary goalie Devin Cooley’s shoulder, went high in the air and came back down to roll off Cooley’s spine and into the net.

“I can't say that I've ever scored a goal like that,” Gauthier said, but you get pucks on net and good things happen.”

Gauthier’s second goal was a one-time rifle on the power play to cap a zinging passing sequence.

Carlsson corralled the puck at the left point, and sent it down the wall to Beckett Sennecke, who put it back to Jackson LaCombe at the point. LaCombe one-touched it over into Gauthier’s wheelhouse in the circle to bang home the goal, his team-leading 28th of the season.

“It's been fun,” Gauthier said of the power play, which has struck in all three games out of the break. “Good group of guys. Snapping the puck around really good. Gelling well, and we're getting a lot of opportunities. A couple went in, a couple haven’t, so just sticking to it.”

Injury Report

Anaheim again iced an 11-forward, 7-defenseman line-up on Sunday, as the team battles a healing forward group with Mikael Granlund, Troy Terry, Frank Vatrano and Ryan Strome all on the mend.

“It's all status quo,” Quenneville said of the injury list. “They didn't skate (today). I don't think the forecast is anything different than it is today.”

Granlund missed his third straight game out of the Olympic break with an upper-body injury. Granlund has yet to practice since taking a hit from behind late in Finland’s bronze medal win in Milan..

Terry missed his second straight game with an upper-body injury. It’s the second stint with the injury for Terry, who missed 11 games in January with the same upper-body injury.

Vatrano practiced again on Saturday, but he hasn’t gotten the full okay to return from a fractured shoulder suffered on Dec. 27. He remains on injured reserve.

Strome was scratched for the fifth straight game, his second straight due to illness.