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The Anaheim Ducks fell short against the Dallas Stars in their first game after the All-Star Break, losing 3-2 in a shootout yesterday.
The Ducks looked alright in their own end early, breaking up a few plays in front of their own net to prevent some good chances. Roope Hintz did end up with a breakaway about seven minutes into the period though, but John Gibson came up with a big save. Only a minute later, however, Radek Faksa found Nils Lundkvist in alone for a backdoor pass to beat Gibson, opening the scoring. The Ducks actually did put together a relatively solid frame overall, but were trailing after 20 minutes.
The Stars then went up 2-0 in the second period, with Roope Hintz burying a pass from Dennis Gurianov. Dallas completely took over from there, controlling most of the frame. However, thanks to some near misses and a couple great saves from Gibson, followed by a good penalty kill on a long 5-on-3, the Ducks managed to escape the period only being down two goals.
The Ducks didn’t get a ton going early in the third frame, but midway through the period, Jakob Silfverberg tipped in a shot from Kevin Shattenkirk on a power play, cutting the lead in half. Then only a little over a minute later, the Stars couldn’t clear the zone and Trevor Zegras found Adam Henrique who beat Jake Oettinger with a nice shot, and out of nowhere, the game was tied.
Neither team could capitalize in regulation from there, and the game continued to overtime, where the Ducks ended up with a power play opportunity to win it. However, they couldn’t convert and the Stars then had a great 2-on-1 chance shorthanded, forcing Gibson to come up with another save.
The matchup continued to a shootout, where Jason Roberson was up first and put the Stars ahead. After each team’s next shooter missed though, Mason McTavish came in and snuck the puck through Oettinger, tying things up. However, after Tyler Seguin beat Gibson, Adam Henrique needed to score but was denied, leaving Dallas with the extra point.
Other than a really rough back half of the second period, this wasn’t a bad outing for the Ducks. They certainly relied on Gibson to keep them in the game after allowing the second goal but were able to show a bit of fight and battle back in the third period on the road against a really good team. One thing the Ducks have shown this year is that they do have the ability to recover from a deficit, mounting multi-goal comebacks in the third period a few times this season.
The concerning piece of news though was that Troy Terry left the game with an upper-body injury. He played only three shifts in the first period.
With the tying goal, Adam Henrique picked up his seventh goal over just the last nine games. Meanwhile, this was also probably one of John Klingberg’s best games with the Ducks.
You could tell this game against Klingberg’s former team was important to him, and he was skating with the puck far more than he has been all year, while actually showing some intensity in puck battles as well. If only we saw that from Klingberg more often this year, maybe things would’ve worked out a bit differently.
Anaheim’s penalty kill also deserves a ton of credit. They managed to go 5-for-5 and their kill at the end of the second period in particular was a key reason why the Ducks even had a chance to get back into the game in the third period.
John Gibson was also great, making 39 saves in the loss. If it weren’t for him, the Ducks certainly would’ve been down by a larger margin after 40 minutes.
Anaheim will be right back in action tonight, as they face the Chicago Blackhawks in the second half of their back-to-back set.
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