The Ducks will ring in the new year against the surging Tampa Bay Lightning, and as the calendar turns their resolutions surely include better game management and stronger starts.
Even in a match they dominated in most respects against the San Jose Sharks on Monday, the Ducks’ flaws were still on prominent display. They out-shot the Sharks 42-13 but still lost 5-4, having given up the game’s first goal and repeatedly shot themselves in the foot.
“It’s just the little details in the game,” said Cutter Gauthier, who had a goal and a primary assist. “We do a great job every single night of generating offense and getting opportunities to score goals, [but] it’s really hard to score five or six goals every single game in this league.”
Troy Terry, who led the way with two goals and a primary assist in a losing effort, also pointed to mental lapses, blown coverages and poor puck management. The Ducks, who had long been jockeying around the top of the Pacific Division, slipped into third place behind not only the Vegas Golden Knights, but also the Edmonton Oilers, who leapfrogged both franchises into first place.
While the Ducks have dropped seven of their past nine decisions, Edmonton is on a roll that has seen the Oilers post the second-best points total, the most goals per game and the league’s best power play (44.2%) by a wide margin since Dec. 4. Though Vegas has struggled of late, losing five of six, lower in the table, the Calgary Flames have won eight of their past 11 contests.
“Everyone says you take it day by day, but the reality is that it’s really close. We’ve got to start winning, because the teams behind us are winning,” Terry said. “We’ve worked hard to put ourselves in this position, but we’re not even halfway [through the season]. There’s a long stretch of hockey coming and we’ve got to make sure we’re managing these games and getting points.”
The Ducks have as many regulation losses, 14, when giving up the first goal as they have games in which they have scored first. Their 12-2-0 mark when opening the scoring is decidedly stronger than their 9-14-2 clip when ceding the first tally.
“We haven’t scored first, often, all year. The first one usually can be the biggest factor in a game,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “But I don’t think it stops us from competing and doing what we need to do to get back in the game, [though] obviously, it would be nice to be playing from ahead.”
Quenneville coached against Tampa Bay during the early part of the Bolts’ ascent under bench boss Jon Cooper. Quenneville’s Chicago Blackhawks beat the Ducks in the 2015 conference finals and then vanquished Cooper’s Lightning for their third Stanley Cup in six years.
Since then, Tampa has won the Cup twice and taken the East three more times under Cooper, though it hasn’t been out of the first round since their 2022 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in the Final.
Presently, the Bolts are on a four-game winning streak across which they’ve scored 19 goals, both blowing a 3-0 lead only to win a shootout and surmounting a 3-0 deficit in the process. Nikita Kucherov’s next point will make him the seventh player this season to cross the 50-point threshold, and he has six points in his past three appearances.
Tampa Bay at Ducks
When: 1 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Honda Center
TV: Victory+, KCOP (Ch. 13)