Ducks snatched a thrilling overtime victory, showcasing resilience with key saves and clutch plays despite lineup challenges and offensive zone struggles.
With hopes of extending their winning streak to a season-high-tying seven games, the Anaheim Ducks began the Canadian leg of their five-game road trip on Sunday with a trip to take on the Calgary Flames.
The Ducks remain without star forwards Troy Terry (upper body), Leo Carlsson (lower body), and Mason McTavish (upper body), and have been relying on contributions from lower in the lineup and on the blueline.
Calgary had battled back from a tough start to the season to briefly reinsert themselves in the playoff picture, but entered Sunday on a three-game winless streak and having won just three of their previous 11 games.
Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville doesn’t typically make adjustments to winning lineups, so the Ducks iced the same lineup they had for their previous two games. Here’s how they lined up in this game:
Killorn-Granlund-Sennecke
Kreider-Harkins-Strome
Viel-Poehling-Gauthier
Johnston-Washe-Moore
LaCombe-Trouba
Mintyukov-Helleson
Zellweger-Gudas
Lukas Dostal got the start for the Ducks on the first leg of a back-to-back, and he was sensational again, making critical saves, and finished with 32 saves on 35 shots. He was opposed by Dustin Wolf in the Flames’ net, who saved 17 of 21.
Game Notes
The Ducks got off to another slow start in this game and had a difficult time all night establishing offensive zone time for any extended period. Calgary fired a high-volume attack at Dostal, who weathered the storm gracefully, but despite the shot discrepancy, the Ducks did well enough to limit the danger of those chances, especially after the first period.
This was a game in which the Ducks were somewhat fortunate to take it to overtime, but the underlying numbers didn’t paint as wide a discrepancy as the raw shot totals suggest. At 5v5, the Ducks were outshot 17 to 29 (36.96%), but held 48.11% of the shot attempts share (51-55), and 47.67% of the expected goals share (2.02-2.22).
Forecheck: A key to the Ducks’ recent success without some of their top offensive stars has been their efficiency and disruption of their forecheck. Calgary's defensemen and defensively inclined forwards negated much of that, as their blueliners were quick to retrievals and moved pucks effectively to supporting, high-energy outlets in the defensive zone, which afforded them several clean exits before a Ducks forecheck could get established.
In the Ducks’ end, those same Calgary forwards did well to take away, influence, or disrupt second passes out of the zone with the help of well-timed pinches from their defensemen. This combination gave way to Anaheim’s struggles to string together possession sequences and keep pucks out of their zone.
Killorn-Granlund-Sennecke: Make no mistake, this was another impressive offensive performance from Sennecke, Anaheim’s top rookie producer since Trevor Zegras in 2021-22. However, he made a few less-than-ideal wall decisions on breakouts and wasn’t quite the offensive driver he’d been in recent games. Despite those nitpicks, his reads, subsequent movement to involve himself, and finishing were gamebreaking and his first career hat trick was well-deserved.
Granlund was the Ducks forward who seemed to grab this game by the horns and refused to let his team lose. He made a handful of astute reads in his end and connected plays up ice, while his creativity, vision, escapability, and small-area puck skills were the difference between the Ducks notching two points or zero. Killorn’s unheralded and detailed play created the necessary ice for Granlund and Sennecke to connect on their high-skilled sequences, and his tenacious efforts in front of the net drove defensemen to the goal line, where he negated their sticks from breaking up plays.
Olen Zellweger: Zellweger, in his hometown, seemed determined to make an impact on this game, and his feet didn’t stop moving from the opening puck drop. He strung together some quality sequences in the offensive zone, but his 200-foot skating, both vertical and lateral, allowed him to gap opponents from goal line to goal line, seal attackers on the wall, cleanly strip them of pucks, and singlehandedly start breakouts the other way.
Jacob Trouba: Like Killorn, Trouba’s contributions in this game don’t stand out on the surface. However, he’s one who’s greatly improved his decision-making around his net, and he made two stellar defensive plays that led directly to Sennecke’s two regulation goals. First, he perfectly timed a pinch in the offensive zone to extend a possession and keep a puck low, allowing Granlund and Sennecke to protect and create their look. Second, he disrupted a lateral pass at the defensive blueline against the rush that sent Killorn, Granlund, and Sennecke on a 3v2 the other way.
Chris Kreider: After a scorching start, Kreider went a stretch of the season relatively invisible on a shift-by-shift basis. He’s reversed that aspect in the last handful of games, noticeably more involved with defensive efforts to pressure puck carriers and diligently backcheck through the middle to aid his defensemen against the rush.
The Ducks will immediately head to take on the Edmonton Oilers on Monday, with the winner being afforded the ability to claim sole possession of second place in the Pacific Division.