The Anaheim Ducks ended their four-game Eastern Conference road trip with a loss last night, falling 2-1 in overtime to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Penguins certainly had a step on the Ducks early in the first period, with all the momentum. They had some great chances from the likes of Rickard Rakell and Sidney Crosby, before an early power play. Even prior to the midway mark of the opening frame, the Penguins had already passed double digit shots, with Anaheim barely getting anything going the other way.
The Ducks did start to wake up a bit later in the period with a couple chances of their own though. Then Despite being outplayed through most of the period, Trevor Zegras put a good pass out front to Alex Killorn, who beat Alex Nedeljkovic with about four minutes left in the frame to open the scoring.
So even though Anaheim was outshot 18-7 in the period, they took a lead to intermission.
The Ducks had an early power play in the second period that they couldn’t capitalize on, but we did see a much better second period from there. Anaheim still didn’t really have a ton of good opportunities themselves, but they were giving up a lot less in the way of quality chances to Pittsburgh. They managed to kill off two penalties and didn’t give up many good opportunities on them, and after a slower second frame, the Ducks kept the lead heading into the third period.
The Penguins got on the board early in the third period though, with Sidney Crosby redirecting a point shot through Dostal, tying the game. Pittsburgh had some momentum from there, and ended up throwing 14 shots on Dostal in the frame.
But with under two minutes to play, Cutter Gauthier had a golden opportunity to help the Ducks steal a win, going in alone on a breakaway, but he was stopped by Nedeljkovic, and the game continued to overtime.
In the extra frame though, Gauthier ended up turning the puck over along the wall, and Crosby went in alone to make a move and beat Dostal, giving the Penguins the win.
Takeaways
It's something we've seen many times already this season, but the Ducks were outshot badly, and Lukas Dostal had to be great again.
To be fair, Anaheim did recover a little bit after a pretty rough start. They were completely flat in the first 10 minutes or so, and while Pittsburgh’s shot totals continued to rise afterwards, the caliber of chances peaked early on.
At the same time though, they still gave up 45 shots, barely managing half of that themselves. Dostal’s .945 save percentage across eight games may be elite, but the Ducks can’t keep going at this rate. Even when some of the shots aren’t high-danger, the team is really relying on Dostal being pretty close to perfect in order to keep them in games.
So far, the Ducks have given up the most shots on goal per game of any team in the NHL this season (35.7), but rank just 29th in shots for per game (26.4).
Even aside from the volume of shots they’re giving up, the Ducks can’t score. They rank 31st in the NHL in goals per game, and while it was great to see the Gauthier-Zegras-Killorn line get on the board, there’s still no consistency in terms of production from their top forwards.
In other news, Tristan Luneau was also sent down to the AHL today. It’s not wildly surprising, given Luneau was starting to find himself on the outside of the lineup looking in, playing in just one of the team’s last five games. Given Luneau is still just developing at 20 years old, it’ll be better to get him into action in the AHL, rather than having him sit in the press box for extended periods.
Overall though, the road trip could’ve been worse in terms of results, with Anaheim going 1-2-1. They were facing some good teams, and I think coming away with four points probably would’ve been close to a best-case scenario, so taking three points is at least better than it could’ve gone.
The Ducks will be back in action on Sunday, when they begin a six-game homestand against the Chicago Blackhawks.
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