The Hockey News' Derek Lee previews the Ducks' matchup against the Calgary Flames.
The Ducks will look to extend their winning streak to five games in a divisional matchup against the Calgary Flames.
Anaheim is coming off a 5-4 overtime win against the Winnipeg Jets on Friday, while the Flames are coming off a 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings.
“We can be better without the puck, for sure,” Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville said. “We can try to control the amount of odd-man breaks we've given up or the quality of the chances that they get in the defensive zone through the slot. Those two areas we have to tighten up because the quality has been too high and I think earlier on in the year, we proved we can score. I think we know that we can score again, coming out of this break. But, let's see how good a team we can be. To put it all together is what we're looking for.”
Feb 27, 2026; Anaheim, California, USA; Anaheim Ducks center Ryan Poehling (25) shoots and scores a goal against Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (37) during the third period at Honda Center. Mandatory Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images“We were playing really good hockey before the break,” Alex Killorn said. “We had almost three weeks off, you kind of get a little bit loose. We get two big wins and you kind of build momentum. We can just tighten things up, hopefully, and not worry about always coming back in games because down the stretch, it's going to be hard to come back in games like that.”
“(We need to be) playing a full 60 and getting started early,” Ryan Poehling said. “We’re making it harder on ourselves, but we play a fun brand of hockey where we're able to come back. But at the same time, I think when we play simple, you even see in those two games where we have spreads of 10-12 minutes where we're just taking it to them, playing behind them. It’s a ton of fun and (we’re) a hard team to play against when we do it that way. For us to just kind of simplify and play more of that style of hockey, I think it's going to be important for us down the stretch.”
Troy Terry, Mikael Granlund and Ryan Strome did not participate in Saturday’s practice. Terry missed Friday’s game against the Jets and is day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Granlund has not played since the team came out of the Olympic break due to an upper-body injury. Strome was “under the weather”, according to Quenneville, which is why he was not an option for Friday’s game, in which the Ducks dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen.
Ducks Projected Lines
Chris Kreider - Leo Carlsson - Cutter Gauthier
Jeff Viel - Mason McTavish - Beckett Sennecke
Jansen Harkins - Ryan Poehling - Alex Killorn
Ross Johnston - Tim Washe - Frank Vatrano
Jackson LaCombe - Jacob Trouba
Olen Zellweger - Radko Gudas
Pavel Mintyukov - Drew Helleson
Ian Moore
Lukáš Dostál (projected)
Flames Projected Lines
Yegor Sharangovich - Mikael Backlund - Matt Coronato
Connor Zary - Nazem Kadri - Joel Farabee
Blake Coleman - Morgan Frost - Matvei Gridin
Martin Pospíšil - John Beecher - Adam Klapka
Kevin Bahl - Mackenzie Weegar
Yan Kuznetsov - Zach Whitecloud
Joel Hanley - Zayne Parekh
Devin Cooley (projected)