ANAHEIM — The Ducks grimaced first but laughed last, taking the season’s first Freeway Faceoff from the Kings, 5-4 in a shootout, despite not leading until the final horn on Friday afternoon at Honda Center.
They remained in first place in the Pacific Division, winning for the fourth time in their last six outings with each decision coming by a single goal. The Kings stumbled for the fourth time in five games, with their last seven results separated by just one goal.
Friday marked the Ducks’ ninth comeback win and their fifth when surmounting a multi-goal deficit.
“On the bench, we never feel like we’re out of a game. It’s almost like we get more angry when we get down by one or two,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said.
Leo Carlsson led the way with a late tying goal and two assists. Chris Kreider, Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov each notched a goal for the Ducks. Ville Husso pulled out his season debut, stopping 23 shots.
Alex Laferriere, Kevin Fiala, Alex Turcotte and Joel Edmundson scored for the Kings. Brandt Clarke, Brian Dumoulin and Trevor Moore had two assists apiece. Darcy Kuemper made 27 saves.
Both goalies were unblemished in overtime, with Husso summoning his best work as the match’s conclusion loomed. In the shootout, Troy Terry got the ball rolling, and Mason McTavish’s dastardly diligent deke slammed the door shut for the Ducks.
What McTavish’s move lacked in novelty, it made up for in patience, as his patented move opened up Kuemper to the point where he had two available options.
“[I’ve seen it in practice and] I think I’ve seen it in every warmup, too,” Carlsson said. “I actually thought he was going to go backhand, because it was wide open, but he went five-hole like usual.”
Though they needed a show-stopping save from Husso on Adrian Kempe’s kneeling one-timer late to reach overtime, the biggest push toward the extra frame came from Carlsson’s 13th goal, scored six-on-five.
Kreider’s keep-in at the blue line and McTavish’s grueling battle along the wall with Anže Kopitar allowed Jackson LaCombe to circle behind the net and push the puck into the low slot for Carlsson’s score-leveling snapshot with 1:31 left in regulation.
“I got it in the slot from Kreider, I was a little (upset) about that, that I didn’t score that one,” Carlsson said of the previous play. “Then they just left me open in the front of the net, so it was a nice goal.”
The Ducks closed within striking distance with 9:18 remaining, when Mintyukov lifted a shot from the slot for his first goal of the campaign.
Corey Perry participated in 62 Freeway Faceoffs as a Duck against the Kings, and his first clash with the roles reversed saw him set a key screen to facilitate Edmundson’s goal off a long, sharp-angle slapshot for his second marker this season.
“I thought they were very fortunate on their fourth one, and all of a sudden, we were down by two against a team that doesn’t give up much. So, it was a big task for us, but we hung in there,” Quenneville said.
The Kings had pulled ahead by a goal for the third time on Friday with 3:23 elapsed in the third period by way of Turcotte’s first goal and first point of the season. A mesmerizing saucer pass from Clarke set up Turcotte to deflect the puck and regain the lead.
“He gets his first goal and was just really good all over the ice, that’s what you love to see,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said of Turcotte.
At 2:02 of the second period, the Kings wedged a goal between a pair by the Ducks to leave the contest tied at two during the second intermission.
Nearly a full minute of sustained pressure from the Ducks, thanks in no small part to Jacob Trouba’s active shift, led to a fortuitous goal to knot the score anew at 11:02. Zellweger’s sharp-angle redirection from close range squeaked through Kuemper’s five hole for his fourth goal of the season.
Just 59 seconds earlier, a sloppy forward change left a tired top pairing to defend three Kings. Clarke found Quinton Byfield, who slipped the puck to Fiala for a short-side strike from the inner part of the left circle. It was Fiala’s ninth goal of the season and his first in six games since he snapped a three-game goal streak.
The Ducks had equalized nine minutes into the period and 10 seconds into their first power play. They shook off a 2-for-21 slump on the power play when Kreider owned Edmundson for position in the paint, boxing him out as Terry delivered a smooth pass for a tip-in tally. It was Kreider’s 11th goal and sixth power-play goal of the year, albeit his first goal in seven games and his first power-play marker in 11 appearances.
A crisp opening frame saw the Ducks dash out to a 7-2 advantage in shots on goal, a gap the Kings erased with nine unanswered shots. Late in the period, the Kings commenced the scoring.
Trouba was muscled past along the boards by Kopitar to gain the zone and create a promising opportunity for Cody Ceci that required an aggressive challenge by Husso to make a skate save. Dumoulin’s pass to Moore for an attempt from high in the zone got the puck into the paint, where Trouba was unable to tie up Laferriere before he swept in his sixth goal of the season.
“It was a fun game to play in, it was intense, the crowd was good and it was definitely a fun atmosphere with two really competitive teams,” said Dumoulin, who played most of last season for the Ducks.