Ducks secure fourth straight win, overcoming early struggles with smart adjustments and key saves. Dostal anchors victory.
In their last home game before taking to the road for a five-game road trip, the Anaheim Ducks hosted the New York Rangers on Monday night at Honda Center.
The Ducks were coming off back-to-back wins in their home-and-home series against the Los Angeles Kings and were entering Monday on a three-game winning streak.
The Rangers, fresh off “The Note 2.0” that announced they were about to enter a “retool” phase, had won their last game before Monday by beating the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3. However, they had won just one of their previous nine.
The Ducks saw the return of Chris Kreider to their lineup for this game, but remain without Troy Terry and Leo Carlsson. Here’s how the Ducks lined up to start:
Kreider-McTavish-Strome
Killorn-Granlund-Sennecke
Viel-Poehling-Gauthier
Johnston-Washe-Moore
LaCombe-Trouba
Mintyukov-Helleson
Zellweger-Gudas
Lukas Dostal got the start for the Ducks and stopped 19 of 22 shots. He was opposed by New York backup Spencer Martin, who saved 21 of 25.
Game Notes
The Ducks got off to a rocky start in this game, allowing themselves to be hemmed in for extended periods, leading to some quality chances behind them, which caused them to surrender an early lead.
They settled in nicely following that opening goal, again simplifying their breakout sequences and establishing a forecheck that eventually wore down New York’s Adam Fox-less blueline, which led to some chances of their own. They ran into penalty trouble late, but Dostal and the killers were able to get key saves and clears at critical times to lock down their fourth straight win.
“They were coming through us rather easily. Their speed was dangerous off the rush,” Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville said after the game. “They scored, ‘okay, here we go.’ We got established there later in the period there, a little bit more how we want to play, more patient in our team game.
“Had some good looks there as the game progressed. Power play was effective at key times today. So, we’ll take the win, and it doesn’t always have to be a thing of art. Winning ugly is basically what happened today.”
Breakouts: Early in the game, the Ducks struggled to get pucks cleanly beyond their blueline and into the neutral zone. The first pass was often on target, but the second touch out of the zone was sniffed out and stifled by New York, which led to several of those extended sequences defending in the Ducks' end.
They began to make easier chips and high flips out of the zone, as they don’t have the line-to-line skill to connect up ice for consistent entries with possession due to their injuries. They pivoted well to a north-south forechecking game, and that adjustment led to a couple of their tallies in this one, notably Jeff Viel’s goal in the second and Gauthier’s first goal in the third.
Lukas Dostal: Dostal made some critical saves at critical times in this game. Not always flashy, but subtle blocker deflections to the netting or quietly getting a tipped puck to stick to him in tight were the differences between his performance and Martin’s in the opposite crease.
Tim Washe: Washe remains impactful in the faceoff dot, winning three of four in this game, on the forecheck, influencing mistimed outlets, and establishing body position with the puck on his stick in small areas. He still makes some sub-NHL-level reads against the most talented of opponents, specifically on New York’s second goal, where he misread the most dangerous lane he needed to take away, which ended with the puck on Artemi Panarin’s stick and in the back of the net.
Power Play: Though the “veteran” unit (Trouba, Mintyukov, Killorn, Kreider, Strome) got the bulk of the power play ice time in this game, and notched the Ducks’ lone tally with the man advantage, the “kid” unit (LaCombe, McTavish, Granlund, Sennecke, Gauthier) was the more connected and dangerous unit in this game.
They had separately designed breakouts, with the veterans running a five-man across-the-board breakout reminiscent of how the majority of NHL teams would run power play breakouts in the early 2010’s, which led to dump-ins that they could get to first, while the kids ran a more modern drop breakout with two trailers.
The “kid” unit showed improvement in terms of poise and cohesion, not only maintaining possession after entry, an area in which they’ve struggled this season, but executing give-and-gos and weaves, which opened up seams to the bumper and far flanks. They have the makings of a potent power play unit that seems on the verge of breaking through with goals in bunches.
The Ducks will take to the road for a five-game road trip, starting in Denver to match up with, far and away, the NHL’s best team this season: the Colorado Avalanche.