Ducks coach Greg Cronin is just as much of a football aficionado as he is a hockey lover, and on Tuesday his club will be in Cowboys country to take on the Dallas Stars.
What was far from thrilling for Cronin and crew was the touchdown they surrendered Sunday in St. Louis, when the Blues channeled a bit of the old Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf” to move to 9-2-2 in their past 13 outings.
The Ducks, who took seven of eight decisions heading into the 4 Nations Face-Off break, have gone 5-7-1 in 13 games since.
The Blues struck twice in the first 90 seconds of Sunday’s contest and dominated on special teams –– there were no long kick or punt returns but rather three power-play goals and a shorthanded tally –– to seize a crucial match.
Cutter Gauthier, who headed to Dallas with 10 points in his last 10 games to elevate him to fifth among all rookies in scoring with 34 points, had one Ducks goal on Sunday and assisted on the other by Nikita Nesterenko.
“If making the playoffs [were] easy, everyone would do it,” Gauthier told Derek Lee of The Hockey news. “Every game matters, all the way back to October. Now. it’s crunch time and it’s game time, and we gotta claw away.”
Cronin told reporters that the shorthanded goal by St. Louis quelled any momentum for a potential comeback.
With just 15 games remaining on the Ducks’ slate, their push to secure a wild-card berth may have suffered a major setback.
This season, they have gone 0-3-0 against St. Louis (they’ve lost 10 straight meetings overall), and lost both matchups to date with the Calgary Flames. They split with the Vancouver Canucks so far and while they earned two tight wins over Utah HC early in the campaign, the third and final meeting was a deflating regulation loss in Salt Lake City on Wednesday.
St. Louis and Vancouver entered this week in a points tie for the final wild-card berth, with Utah and Calgary both two points back of them. Meanwhile, the Ducks were fading behind an eight-point deficit. Calgary has played two fewer games, 65, than any other club in the race, including the Ducks’ 67.
Dallas, on the other hand, need not sweat making the playoffs but rather what it can achieve once the tournament begins, even though they’ve lost both prior clashes with the Ducks this season. In the past five campaigns, the Stars have been to three conference finals series and one Stanley Cup Final.
Not only are they one of 2024-25’s top teams, they loaded up in the trade market, acquiring copious scorer Mikko Rantanen at the trade deadline to add for their formidable groups of Finns. They had already snagged a standout Swede, Mikael Granlund, before the 4 Nations pause.
Tuesday will mark the first home game in Dallas for Rantanen, who was traded from the Colorado Avalanche to the Carolina Hurricanes and then again to Dallas.
He compiled four points in as many games during the Stars’ road trip, which included his first ever return to Colorado. In Denver, a warm reception from the crowd helped ease the sting of an overtime loss. Though Rantanen’s assist on Arcadia native Jason Robertson’s opening goal elicited some boos, he got his flowers during a video tribute from the organization that drafted him and recognition from the fans for whom he won a Stanley Cup in 2022.