Ducks battled a stingy Wild defense and persistent penalties. Despite strong goaltending, offensive struggles cost them.
The Anaheim Ducks traveled to St. Paul to wrap up their three-game road trip with a Saturday evening matchup against the Minnesota Wild.
The Ducks were coming off their first back-to-back regulation losses of the season, which ended their seven-game winning streak. They were hoping to retain control of first place in the Pacific Division and come home with at least two of a possible six points from this trip.
The Ducks saw the returns of Ryan Strome and Mikael Granlund to their lineup in Thursday’s 6-3 loss against the Detroit Red Wings. It seemed Granlund had re-aggravated his lower-body injury and was forced out of the lineup for this game.
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Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville had his lines in a blender from the puck drop and didn’t stop blending lines and D pairs throughout the game. Here’s how they lined up to start, though these lines wouldn’t stay together long:
Gauthier-Carlsson-Killorn
Kreider-McTavish-Sennecke
Nesterenko-Strome-Terry
Johnston-Harkins-Vatrano
LaCombe-Helleson
Zellweger-Trouba
Mintyukov-Moore
The Ducks turned to backup Petr Mrazek for this game, who, coming off a spectacular outing in a 4-3 OT win over the Vegas Golden Knights, turned in another stellar performance, stopping 28 of 29 shots.
Minnesota entered play with points in their last three games, were 4-1-1 in their last six, and hoped to eclipse the .500 mark for the first time since their season-opener.
They had just placed top center Marco Rossi on IR with a lower-body injury and were without the services of Vladimir Tarasenko (lower-body).
Minnesota started their backup goaltender as well, Jesper Wallstedt, who turned in his second shutout in a row, stopping all 28 shots he saw.
Game Notes
Discipline remained an issue for the Ducks in this game, as it has for their last several. They amassed 14 penalty minutes on four high-sticking infractions (two majors) and a bench minor for too many men. Attempting to keep players on regular rotations (along with perhaps another minor benching for Mason McTavish) and spark a semblance of offense caused the coaching staff to jumble lines in search of some chemistry.
Both teams turned in quality defensive efforts, but the Ducks weren't able to muster much offense between the Wild’s stingy performance and constant trips to the penalty kill. The Ducks struggled to capitalize on their counterattacks, which were minimized due to Minnesota’s sufficient puck management. The penalties and defensive execution from both teams rendered this a low-event tilt at 5v5.
Defensive Play: After a series of varying mistakes that led to goals in the Ducks’ loss to Detroit, this game was one of the Ducks’ best two defensive performances from start to finish. Their defensive zone coverage was as clean as it’s been all season, as they eliminated cross ice seam passes. Their backcheckers not only put forth the necessary physical effort to get back into the defensive zone, but they were also smart to pick up trailers and allow their defensemen to separate pucks from puck carriers.
The Ducks' only hiccup came on Minnesota’s lone goal against Mrazek, where there may have been a miscommunication or misread that led to Jacob Trouba overcommitting to the strong side defending the rush, with Strome unable to keep up with the crashing Minnesota forward. The area that still needs some tidying is the net front. Wild forwards were able to get in front of Mrazek too regularly for screens and tips.
Petr Mrazek: Speaking of Mrazek, he turned in his best performance of his four this season for the Ducks. He was aggressive when pucks were high in the zone and did well to fight through traffic and track pucks. This allowed him to challenge, even on pucks that were tipped, so when Minnesota did get sticks on point shots, they often deflected into his pads and stuck to him.
Penalty Kill: After allowing three power play goals on eight attempts in their last two games, the Ducks' penalty kill turned a corner in this game, killing all 14 minutes while down a man. Their second pressure wasn’t as aggressive as it had been after possession had been established, but was ultra-aggressive to defend their blueline and limit clean entries.
Their diamond was cohesive against clean possession, minimizing interior attempts, expanding and collapsing in unison. While players like Leo Carlsson, Troy Terry, and Nikita Nesterenko were able to force turnovers on fumbling pucks and mount some odd-man rushes on the PK, they were more defensively inclined and weren’t solely seeking out those opportunities.
The Ducks will return home in the second-place spot in the Pacific, with hopes of putting an end to their three-game skid on Monday against the Utah Mammoth in their first of six straight games at home.