ANAHEIM ––The Ducks snapped their eight-game losing streak in the same fashion that they won six straight matches earlier this year: by circling the wagons, defying the odds and rallying from a two-goal deficit to upend the Central Division-leading Colorado Avalanche, 4-3 in a shootout, at Honda Center Saturday.
Equally apropos was that their slump concluded against the same team that started it, Colorado, which hung eight goals on the Ducks back on Nov. 15.
So, was there a sense of relief?
“Oh, yeah,” Coach Greg Cronin said. “It grates on you. You can spin it all you want, about the process and the measurables that we look at that reflect the quality of your game, but you keep losing, it’s still, you know, you’re losing, you just feel it.”
Leo Carlsson, who scored the lone goal in the shootout, and Alex Killorn earned primary assists on each other’s goals. Adam Henrique scored the first of the Ducks’ two power-play goals. John Gibson became the Ducks’ all-time leader in games played by a goalie, surpassing J.S. Giguere, who said in a video message, “Since the first day I saw you, I knew you had the talent to do it, and I’m glad you did it today.”
The Ducks entered the game already missing one top forward, Trevor Zegras (as well as defenseman Jamie Drysdale), and soon found themselves without another, Mason McTavish, who sustained an upper-body injury in the first period.
Bowen Byram had two goals and Devon Toews’ tally gave Colorado three scores from its defense corps. Ivan Prosvetov made 33 saves, the same total as Gibson, through 65 minutes.
Carlsson channeled his countryman Peter Forsberg in the shootout, only instead of winning gold for Sweden at the Olympics, Carlsson’s move from his forehand to his backhand and back to his forehand delivered the Ducks from their prolonged funk.
“It feels amazing, it was a great game I think. Obviously Colorado’s a great team. A great team effort, with 11 forwards too, hopefully (McTavish) is okay, but it was just a great game,” Carlsson said.
Overtime saw the visitors put the hosts on their heels, until Gibson snagged Byram’s bid for a hat trick authoritatively with his glove. On the ensuing play, Pavel Mintyukov keyed a counterattack that he nearly finished, instants before Carlsson hit the post with a shot. Killorn would dangle and dazzle into a sterling opportunity at the net with 12 seconds to play and the shootout looming.
“There’s some elite talent on the ice. I thought Cam (Fowler) was great, Minty was great,” said Cronin, who coached in Colorado’s system for five campaigns. “We survived the Rantanen and MacKinnon rushes and we were smart enough to counterattack off the turnovers.”
Gibson denied Ross Colton and Miles Wood on separate breakaway opportunities to preserve the tie in the third period. He also stoned Nathan MacKinnon after he maneuvered intrepidly through four Ducks defenders. Troy Terry’s chance in the final minute of regulation was nearly the game-winner and his first goal in 14 games since his Nov. 1 hat trick.
The Ducks were undaunted by their first-intermission disadvantage and made it a new game with goals at the 2:58 and 10:22 marks of the second period.
Killorn tied the game with a man-advantage marker, his 200th career tally and his 40th on the power play. He first played pitch-and-catch with one rookie, Mintyukov, and then another, Carlsson, before rifling a low-flying shot from the right circle for his second goal of the year. Killorn called Saturday’s match his “best game of the year” and Cronin concurred.
Killorn was also the architect of Carlson’s goal. Carlson flicked the puck to Killorn in the neutral zone, at which point he drove the net forcefully, occupied two defenders and found Carlsson for a redirection goal from in tight. Carlsson’s seventh tally gave him sole possession of second place among rookies behind Chicago’s Connor Bedard.
Former Ducks defenseman Josh Manson, who had a brief tribute on the Jumbotron Saturday, started the sequence on Colorado’s first goal, 36 seconds into the contest. He muscled Jackson LaCombe off the puck along the wall, leaving only Fowler back against three counterattacking Avs. A trailing Byram finished the rush with a snap shot.
Byram would deposit his second goal of the game and fifth of the season at the 8:59 mark. It was another transition play, again started by Manson, but this time Byram carried the puck ahead on a two-on-one break, electing to whip another snapper past Gibson.
A seam pass to one side opened up a backdoor play on the other when Frank Vatrano and Ryan Strome engineered a power-play redirection goal for Henrique 14:05 into the first period.
Just 54 seconds later, the Ducks were shorthanded. They also took a penalty 24 seconds after Byram’s first goal, though they killed off both infractions. Overall, they struck twice on the power play while quelling all three Colorado opportunities after they took just one second-period penalty and none in the third.
Their work shorthanded didn’t signify that the Ducks were out of danger, and 43 seconds before they would have been saved by the bell, the Avalanche created further separation when a defensive-zone faceoff became yet another goal off the rush. Toews activated, weaving into a three-man play with MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen to score and put the Ducks down a pair.
That only set the scene for the Ducks’ comeback, which provided the sweet relief of two points after an 0-for-16 stretch that felt interminable until Carlsson’s silky winner.
“That was an unbelievable goal he scored. We needed that, obviously, it had been eight in a row, losing games,” Cronin said. “You could feel a little stress on the bench towards the end. I thought we really rebounded well in overtime with some quality chances.”