The Anaheim Ducks came up short against the Los Angeles Kings last night, falling 4-1 at home.
Jackson LaCombe suited up for his first game of the season (paired with Radko Gudas), while Olen Zellweger shifted to played with Brian Dumoulin in place of Pavel Mintyukov, who was out with an illness. Meanwhile, Lukas Dostal got his fourth start of the season.
First Period
We saw very little generated early on from either team, with Frank Vatrano and Warren Foegele getting the only two threatening chances through the first half of the opening period. The Ducks did end up with two power play opportunities in the back half of the frame, but as has quickly come to be expected, they didn’t get much going on either. As a result, the game remained scoreless after a fairly uneventful opening frame.
Second Period
The Kings came out stronger in the second period, and Lukas Dostal had to make good save on an early rush off chance for Alex Laferriere. Leo Carlsson did then have the Ducks’ first real chance of the frame a little later, but it was stopped by David Rittich.
Los Angeles pressed more from there, with a good rush chance for Trevor Moore, then two power play chances, but the Ducks managed to fend them off. Anaheim's best chances came with around seven minutes to go, when a rebound chance for Frank Vatrano was cleared away by Joel Edmundson, before Rittich denied a good wraparound chance for Mason McTavish. Despite some chances though, Anaheim was still outshot 13-4 in the frame, but the game remained scoreless through 40 minutes.
Third Period
The Kings did open the scoring just three minutes into the third period, when Adrian Kempe took a breakaway pass to beat Dostal five-hole.
Things kind of fell apart for Anaheim from there, and while they had their third man advantage roughly five minutes into the period, they still couldn’t convert. Kevin Fiala then had a breakaway chance with an opportunity to extend the lead, but Dostal made a good glove save.
However, nearing the midway point of the period, Jackson LaCombe committed a terrible turnover right to Alex Laferriere, who beat Dostal from the slot to extend the lead.
Anaheim did make it interesting late, with Ryan Strome tipping in a pass from Troy Terry to cut the lead to one, with a little under two minutes to go.
However, Kevin Fiala added an empty netter from there, before Mikey Anderson scored another for good measure, securing a 4-1 Kings win.
Takeaways
Even though the score may have remained close in their games against Colorado and Los Angeles, the Ducks have looked really rough at times in both games. They put forward a decent, if uneventful, opening frame at even strength last night, before being outplayed by a wide margin in the back 40 minutes.
Over the second and third periods, Anaheim was outshot 31-8. There was just so little sustained pressure from the Ducks, and when they did carry the puck in off the rush, at times it was just a single player making a solo entry with no support, to make for an easy shut down for Los Angeles.
While Lukas Dostal had yet another really strong performance, it’s not necessarily ideal for that to be the positive we take away from each game. The Ducks have needed him to be their best player, just to have a chance in each of the last two contests.
Anaheim’s offense has been largely nonexistent since their win over Utah. The Ducks’ top two lines were crushed at 5-on-5, with the Gautheir-Carlsson-Killorn line and the Zegras-McTavish-Fabbri lines being outshot by a combined 21-3 margin at 5-on-5, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. There have been some good flashes from each unit, but it’s going to be hard to win when the team’s top players can't get anything going for a couple of games. The Vatrano-Strome-Terry line seems to be the team's best shot at some consistency.
That’s also not aided by their power play continuing to be a disaster. The Ducks went 0-for-3 last night, bringing their season total to 0-for-17.
Jackson LaCombe also had a rough outing in his first game. He let Kempe get in behind him on the first goal, then was largely responsible for the second goal.
It’s another poor effort for the Ducks, which didn’t inspire much confidence. The results are expected to be up-and-down, but you’d at least like to see a higher compete level in the games they don’t win.
Anaheim will be back in action tomorrow, with a good chance to get back in the win column against the 0-4-2 San Jose Sharks.
OTHER ARTICLES FROM OCTOBER
- Ducks split back-to-back to open season with win over Sharks, loss to VGK
- Ducks beat Utah in home opener after back-and-forth battle
- Lukas Dostal makes 45 saves, but Ducks fall to Avalanche in overtime
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