ANAHEIM — The Ducks returned to Honda Center for the first time since April and earned their first victory of the preseason on Monday night, making light work of the Utah Mammoth in a 6-1 win.
Drew Helleson contributed a goal and two assists, matching the point total of his defense partner Jackson LaCombe’s three-assist evening. Matthew Phillips deposited two goals while Troy Terry produced two primary assists. Beckett Sennecke, Ryan Strome and Ross Johnston each picked up a goal. Petr Mrázek had 25 saves.
Dylan Guenther had a goal for Utah. Karel Vejmelka started the game, allowing three goals on 17 shots through 40 minutes before being replaced by Jaxson Stauber, the son of former Kings goalie Robb Stauber, who ceded three more.
Ducks coach Joel Quenneville got his first win while sporting an orange tie – during the regular season, he has more victories than every coach in NHL history except Scotty Bowman – and was pleased with the effort.
He lauded newcomer Mikael Granlund as having a “special game.” He described the undersized Phillips’ performance as a “good start for the little guy.” Quenneville even compared the closeness of LaCombe and Helleson to that of three-time Stanley Cup winners Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, whom he guided in Chicago.
“They’re together a lot, and they’ve got a lot of synergy. They’re both Minnesotans, they’re best friends, they’ve got the same agent [Pat Brisson] and they’re a left and a right pair, so it fits nice,” Quenneville said. “They’re as close of a pair as I’ve had.”
The opening 20 minutes brought the game’s first penalty, taken by Olen Zellweger and killed by the Ducks; its first fight, won by Utah’s Montana Onyebuchi against Judd Caufield; and the opening goal, scored by Helleson.
Terry drew a crowd toward the middle of the ice and dished to the left dot for Helleson, who swept a shot through traffic and past Vejmelka, with 2:55 left in the period.
After a power play for each side in the middle frame, the Ducks cracked the game open with a pair of goals that came 68 seconds apart, at the 4:10 and 5:18 marks.
Helleson was paired with his buddy since the nascent stages of elementary school, LaCombe, presumably with Helleson being the stay-at-home partner for the Ducks’ leading scorer from the blue line last year. But it was LaCombe swiping a simple, direct pass to Helleson, who deked through two defenders and delivered the puck to Phillips for a redirection goal.
Last year’s No. 3 overall draft pick, Sennecke, extended the Ducks’ edge to 3-0. Another lottery pick, Leo Carlsson, twice impeded Utah’s progress up the ice. He and Tyson Hinds got the puck ahead to Sennecke with a step on two defenders for a hard drive to the net that allowed him to finish in tight.
Sennecke said from his first preseason to his second there were no major changes for him, apart from the obvious given the Ducks’ coaching change.
“You should keep it simple, and he said, just play the game, don’t think,” Sennecke said Quenneville imparted to him.
After the faceoff following Sennecke’s goal, Noah Warren fought for the second time in two days, squaring off with Curtis Douglas after taking on the Kings’ Samuel Helenius on Sunday. Hinds scrapped with Utah’s Ben McCartney in the third tilt of the evening, early in the third period.
Utah also put up at least something of a fight on the scoreboard at 14:48 of the second period, when Guenther glided toward Mrázek at a sharp angle and snuck the puck off his backhand and into the net.
The Ducks stretched their lead to 4-1, 5:33 into the third period. Again it was Terry buzzing around the offensive zone, this time flicking the puck toward the net for a deflection goal by Strome.
At 9:18, Johnston tipped Jan Myšák’s shot for a redirection tally of his own, and with 5:53 to play Phillips tacked on his second goal, this one coming off the rush.
Next up, the Ducks will host the Kings on Wednesday night.