ANAHEIM, Calif. – The power play had kept the Anaheim Ducks afloat in its early games, and even as the five-on-five play saw a 20-second spark at the end of the first period, it was the special teams that caved in for the Ducks on Friday.
Anaheim came up empty with the extra man five times, and the Boston Bruins erased a 2-0 deficit with three straight power play goals to skate by the Ducks, 4-2, at Honda Center
Anaheim lost both games on this short homestand after holding leads into the second period in both affairs. The Ducks have led after one period in all three losses.
"A little bit of our details we kind of lost at the end of the second and into the third," Jackson LaCombe said. "We have to be more disciplined and sharp in our execution."
Tim Washe opened the scoring with an unassuming shot through traffic in the final minute of the first period, and Beckett Sennecke finished a highlight tic-tac-toe sequence just 20 seconds later for a 2-0 Ducks lead after one.
Frederic Brunet rolled in a power play bouncer for Boston’s first goal and his first career NHL goal early in the second period. David Pastrnak finished off a pinballing power play goal to tie early in the third period, and Elias Lindholm scored Boston’s third power play goal for the go-ahead strike five minutes later.
Matthew Poitras finished the two-on-one dagger with just under four minutes to play.
Anaheim, which entered the night with the league’s second-best power play with a 33.3% conversion rate, went 0-for-5 with the extra man, and Boston went 3-for-3 against the Ducks’ fourth-best penalty kill (90.5% kill rate entering Friday).
Lukáš Dostál made 18 saves in his sixth start of the season, and Michael DiPietro stopped 24 of 26 shots for the Bruins.
Cutter Gauthier returned to the Ducks line-up after being sidelined with an upper-body injury stemming back to the first period in Calgary on Saturday. With Mikael Granlund sitting with his own day-to-day upper-body injury, Gauthier swapped from wing to his natural center position. Gauthier went 4-for-20 on the face-off dot.
Anaheim (4-3-0, 8 points) sets off for its first East Coast road trip of the season with a four-game tri-state set starting with a New York back-to-back against the Rangers on Monday and Islanders on Tuesday.
Ducks return to Anaheim on Oct. 27 against Vancouver.
After a lackluster effort against the previously winless Calgary Flames on Tuesday, Joel Quenneville had a charge for his group entering this game against a strong Bruins side (5-2-0).
"We need to play faster, harder, have the puck more and simpler,” the Ducks head coach said at Friday’s morning skate. “We didn't have quite the support of the puck possession game last game. Tonight, we've got a great test."
Anaheim heeded the bench boss’s call and came out swinging against Boston.
Ducks forechecked hard and worked into the center lane all period for a 60.42% expected goals share per Natural Stat Trick (over 67% per MoneyPuck), but it took an innocuous play in the final minute for the effort to pay off.
AJ Greer pulled the puck out of the right corner and sent it high to Tristan Luneau. Jackson LaCombe and Tim Washe had a neat interchange at the point, and with Jeff Malott creating traffic in front, Washe slung a puck from the top of the zone underneath the unsuspecting DiPietro for the opening goal, 1-0.
With the goal register finally open, Anaheim’s second line pounced on momentum 20 seconds later.
Beckett Sennecke weaved through the Boston defense and flipped the puck left to Cutter Gauthier, who returned to the Ducks line-up after an upper-body injury and swapped from wing to center. Gauthier sent it back across to Nikita Nesterenko, who found Sennecke at the net on the other end of the give-and-go for the 2-0 lead after one period.
"I thought we played our best period of the season," Nesterenko said. "Then we let it slip away."
Boston would get one back early in the middle frame on the power play.
Nesterenko nearly made it 3-0 on a shorthanded breakaway, but he lost the puck at the moment of truth.
"I thought that was a turning point," Nesterenko said. "To make it 3-0 would've changed the game. I'm still mad at myself for that."
With some soft coverage on the other end of the Ducks’ penalty kill, Frederic Brunet sent a shot through the middle lane that rolled and took a hop just before it got to Dostal to beat the Ducks goaltender over the pad, 2-1.
Anaheim would carry the run of play through the rest of the period, but time and time again, the Ducks couldn’t connect on a finisher, with far too many shots high and wide off the glass.
"We had 44 shots between missed shots and blocked shots," Quenneville said. "Not even looking to score, we need to put pucks on the net and hit the net."
The Ducks got a gift of a four-minute power play with one minute to play in the second period, but the once electric unit came up powerless. Anaheim’s power play, which entered the night second in the league, went 0-for-4 with the extra man.
Roger McQueen was called for interference trying to hold up and avoid offside to cut the four-minute power play short in the third period, and Boston eventually went back to the man advantage.
On that Bruins power play, Boston attacked the crease, and despite Jackson LaCombe and Noah Warren tying up down low once, twice and three times, the puck pinballed back and forth before David Pastrnak potted the equalizer, 2-2.
Four minutes later, Nikita Klepov went to the box for hooking, and Boston’s power play struck for the third straight time.
The Bruins’ extra-man unit simply passed through the Ducks’ penalty killers as if they weren’t there, and as Dostál went out to challenge thinking the lane was covered, Pavel Zacha slipped the pass under Warren to Elias Lindholm, who finished into the open cage for the 3-2 lead with just under 12 minutes remaining.
With just under four minutes left, Boston iced the game.
Tristan Luneau pinched in the offensive zone, but the puck didn’t get through Nikita Zadorov, and James Hagens raced out for a two-on-one. Hagens slipped the puck under the chasing Pavel Mintyukov, and Matthew Poitras went forehand-backhand around Dostál for the clincher, 4-2.