The Hockey News’ Derek Lee reports from the Ducks’ morning skate.
ANAHEIM, Calif. - In their second game of a six-game homestand, the Ducks will take on the Vancouver Canucks. Tonight is the Ducks’ Hockey Fights Cancer Night.
Anaheim is coming off of a 4-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Nov. 3 while Vancouver is coming off of a 3-2 win on Nov. 2 against the San Jose Sharks.
The Canucks are currently third in the Pacific Division with 13 points and a 5-2-3 record. After a tough start to the season, they have started to right the ship behind solid play from goaltender Kevin Lankinen. Usual starter Thatcher Demko is currently out with a knee injury and his return date is unknown.
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The Ducks created some of their best scoring chances of the season against the Blackhawks, yet came away without the win. After the game, head coach Greg Cronin said that they could have taken 20 shots more. They had finished that game with 40.
Currently, the Canucks are tied for the tenth-best penalty kill in the league (83.3%) with the New Jersey Devils. Both team’s power play percentages are in the bottom-10, with the Canucks at 16.1% and the Ducks at 13.9%. Special teams played a large role as to why the Ducks fell to the Blackhawks. They were 0-for-2 on the penalty kill and 1-for-5 on the power play with that lone goal coming with four seconds remaining in the game.
“I think we've done a really good job this year on drawing penalties,” Ducks head coach Greg Cronin said. “That ratio of drawing penalties versus taking them, I thought we did a good job against Chicago in that respect.
“The goals they scored came probably within 10 seconds of failed clears. You’ve got to get the puck down. We had multiple times in the first power play to get it down and we failed and then we had an opportunity right before Chicago scored on that third goal to get it down the ice and we failed. Usually when that happens, you get a bad feeling. It’s a bad omen. We’ve done pretty well at (getting the puck out on the penalty kill) for most of the year.”
The forward lines will remain intact from Sunday’s game but the blue line will have one change with Urho Vaakanainen drawing in for Jackson LaCombe.
LaCombe received plenty of praise during preseason but missed the first four games of the season due to an illness and has struggled to find consistency since being re-inserted into the lineup.
“Jackson's got a bright future,” Cronin said. “I had a really good conversation with him. We saw what he can do in the preseason and earlier in the year where he was dominating shifts. He’s got all the tools and he's got all the talent to be an impact defenseman in this league and I'm confident that he'll get there.”
Ducks Projected Lines
Robby Fabbri - Leo Carlsson - Ryan Strome
Frank Vatrano - Mason McTavish - Troy Terry
Cutter Gauthier - Trevor Zegras - Alex Killorn
Ross Johnston - Isac Lundeström - Brock McGinn
Cam Fowler - Olen Zellweger
Pavel Mintyukov - Brian Dumoulin
Urho Vaakanainen - Radko Gudas
Lukáš Dostál (confirmed)
Canucks Projected Lines
Jake DeBrusk - J.T. Miller - Brock Boeser
Pius Suter - Elias Pettersson - Conor Garland
Danton Hennen - Teddy Blueger - Kiefer Sherwood
Nils Höglander - Aatu Räty - Daniel Sprong
Quinn Hughes - Filip Hronek
Carson Soucy - Tyler Myers
Erik Brännström - Vincent Desharnais
Kevin Lankinen (confirmed)