ANAHEIM, Calif. – Look good, feel good, play good. Certainly describes the Mighty effort the Anaheim Ducks iced in their first Hometown Remix game of the season.
Draped in the boldly bright green and purple of Disney’s District 5 Ducks, Anaheim continued to dive deep into its Bombay chest of offense with Cutter Gauthier's third hat trick in five games and another three power play goals in a 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday at Honda Center.
Anaheim (10-7-1, 21 points) is just the eighth team in NHL history to score five or more goals in eight straight games and first since the 1988-89 Los Angeles Kings. Ducks league-best power play has 17 goals on 34 opportunities (50%) in the last six games.
Mikael Granlund and Cutter Gauthier kicked off four-point nights on a first-period power play goal, as Granlund scored off a Gauthier rebound just as the power play was set to expire. Gauthier continued his scorching hot stretch with a sneaky no-look, five-hole power play goal and even strength goal in the second period for a 3-0 lead. Granlund picked up assists on both.
"He's just so natural," Granlund said, "and you see those shots going five-hole, like, that's a goal scorer’s goal. So it's impressive and it's fun to watch."
Tristan Luneau scored a goal for the Ducks’ No. 2 power play unit in the third period for a 4-0 lead, and Gauthier sealed the game with a hat trick goal into the empty net.
After scoring just two goals in the first 11 games, Gauthier has scored 13 goals in a six-game goal streak and is third in the league with 15 goals. Gauthier (17 games) is the fastest player in Ducks history to reach five multi-goal games, besting Teemu Selanne’s 20 games in 1997-98–the Finnish Flash’s Ducks franchise-record 52-goal campaign.
"Probably not, no," Gauthier said when asked if he's ever felt the puck on his stick as he does right now. "Obviously on a high right now, so pretty speechless, but I'm very happy we were able to get the win. They fought pretty hard there in the third, but we were able to keep the streak going."
The 22-year-old has already tied the Ducks franchise record for hat tricks in a season, with Frank Vatrano the last to score a trio of hat tricks in 2023-24. Corey Perry and Teemu Selanne are the only other Ducks to acheive the feat. Gauthier’s six-game goal streak is tied with Paul Kariya and Rickard Rakell for the fourth longest in team history. Only Corey Perry (7 games) and Teemu Selanne (11 games) hold longer streaks.
"He's got magic touch," Joel Quenneville said. "He scores big goals, big time. I think he's got some deceptiveness with his release and his quickness. We have guys that have given him a puck some in some good areas. He finds that some interesting places. He’s hotter than a firecracker."
Kris Letang scored a power play goal, as the Penguins pulled their goalie for the extra attacker with over 12 minutes remaining, to get on the board in the third period. Former Duck Rakell scored on another power play with the goalie pulled with just over six minutes remaining to halve the deficit, 4-2.
"I thought we gave up way too much tonight," Quenneville said, "Power play at the end, we can't take. Again, something that's happened this past week, and we just seem to have the game in hand, and all of a sudden, they get two or three, and we should have it sealed. That's something that you can work off of, but I think that, right now, we're happy with the way the power plays, really, really carrying the team."
Anaheim has not earned a shutout since the season opener of the 2024-25 campaign, over two years and 181 games ago.
Laurent Brossoit stopped 31 of 33 shots on an extremely confident night in net for the 34-year-old. Brossoit has four wins in his four starts as a Duck since being called up from AHL San Diego last weekend.
"It was his strongest (game so far)," Quenneville said. "It was a great performance. Early in that game, a lot of quality chances. His rebound control, puck handling ability tonight. He was good in all aspects. It was nice to see he was big in the net. We call that a goalie win."
Normal No. 1 starter Lukáš Dostál was a healthy scratch after being pulled after one period in Calgary on Friday, and Ville Husso took his regular back-up role on Sunday. With Brossoit seemingly supplanting Anaheim's usual netminders with a strong week, Quenneville was asked for his assessment of the state of the Anaheim goal crease.
"All as I know is that (Brossoit's) been outstanding four games in a row," Quenneville said. "I don't think we got to think too much or too much further than that right now. You just enjoy the way he's playing."
Artus Silovs made 18 saves for the Penguins, who have lost five of their last six games and eight of 11 games.
Anaheim continues it’s four-game homestand with its second Hometown Remix night of the season against the Nashville Predators on Wednesday. Ducks will wear the The Mighty Ducks movie-inspired sweaters 10 times this season.
"Obviously a huge fan of them," Gauthier said of the new threads. "It's pretty cool that we did a little retro there. I think we look good in them."
Game Notes:
Far too many historic Cutter Gauthier to toss in right now, but for starters, Gauthier is the first NHL player with three hat tricks in five games since 1993. More coming in tomorrow's notebook.
Jackson LaCombe, who played over 30 minutes for the third straight game, picked up an assist for the 10th straight game to extend his franchise record for a defenseman and tie Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry for the longest in team history (both in 2009-10). LaCombe has points in 16 of 18 games this season and 14 assists in this 10-game streak.
LaCombe is just the fourth American defenseman with a 10-game assist streak following Brian Leetch, Phil Housley and Quinn Hughes.
Beckett Sennecke earned an assist in his 100th career NHL game. Sennecke’s 82 career points are the second most by a Duck in their first 100 games following Paul Kariya’s 103 points.
This is the seventh time in franchise history that the Ducks have scored power play goals in eight straight games and the first since 2016.