ANAHEIM –– Lukas Dostál made 52 saves and stopped Jack Hughes’ penalty shot attempt with 2.1 seconds to play, as the Ducks held on for a dramatic 4-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Friday night at Honda Center.
Though Ducks coach Greg Cronin said he’d never seen such a climax, Dostál said he’d faced the same situation while playing in Finland. After his magnificent performance and smothering stop to seal the victory, Dostál remained understated.
“What can I say? It’s my job to be there to stop the pucks,” Dostál said.
Frank Vatrano scored two goals and Adam Henrique added his 18th goal of the season for the Ducks, but Vatrano also handed the dramatic penalty shot to New Jersey by deliberately knocking the net off its moorings following a scramble around Dostál.
Hughes had a goal and two assists for New Jersey, but he botched the penalty shot by turning over the puck during his tentative approach to Dostál.
Dostál’s stellar performance – his second 50-save performance of the season – gave the Ducks consecutive victories for just the third time since Nov. 15 and the second time in the 2024 calendar year.
His 52 saves are the most ever recorded by a Ducks goalie in a victory, and he matched the second-most saves by any rookie goalie in a victory since 1977, according to the NHL.
“I just wanted to make sure I filled the space when he went so wide,” Dostal said. “It’s always kind of 50-50, but we do it all the time (in practice), breakouts and shootouts. I was pretty confident in the end that I can stop it.”
What was decidedly less novel than Dostál’s dominance, the penalty shot in the dying embers or the Ducks’ sweep of a back-to-back set were that the result of the game wasn’t supported analytically – the Ducks have made a routine of both winning and losing games when the numbers say they shouldn’t – and that they lost even more bodies to injury.
On the same Thursday that they traded Ilya Lyubushkin, they lost their longest-tenured player, defenseman Cam Fowler, to a facial laceration, and their most promising young forward, Leo Carlsson, to an upper-body injury. Neither played on Friday and both were deemed day-to-day. Troy Terry did return to the lineup after a two-game absence, but Mason McTavish exited the game in the first period and did not return. They have been without last year’s leading scorer, Trevor Zegras, since Jan. 9.
Even Dostál entered the game under the weather and was questionable not only to make his start but to finish the game as well.
“He was sick, too. The crazy thing is that we have a little bit of a bug going around the team. We had to actually carry some medicine out to him halfway through the second period,” said Cronin, who said he asked Dostal during the second intermission if he could finish the game, and the goalie responded confidently.
“What a wild way to end a game, but give credit to Dostal,” Cronin said. “He was the best player on the ice and deservedly won the game for us.”
In addition to Vatrano and Henrique, who remained hot after scoring in Thursday’s 6-4 win in San Jose, Max Jones notched a goal and an assist as the Ducks opened a five-game homestand with their first win at Honda Center since January. Radko Gudas had an assist and a fight to answer for the booming hip check he delivered to Hughes.
Hughes assisted on goals by Timo Meier and Tyler Toffoli. Toffoli added an assist while rookie Luke Hughes contributed two helpers. Nico Daws stopped just 10 of 14 shots before being relieved by Akira Schmid.
Dostál sparkled early and often, such as when he stopped Erik Haula’s slap shot and then three rapid-fire follow-ups from Curtis Lazar early in the third period.
New Jersey scored the only goal of the closing act, a power-play rebound marker by Toffoli.
The second period, like the first, saw the Ducks emerge with a pair of goals to the Devils’ one, despite New Jersey owning advantages in almost every possession metric.
Jones extended the Ducks’ lead to 3-1 with 6:13 left, first with persistent puck protection to initiate a cycle and then, after a D-to-D pass, a redirection of Gustav Lindström’s shot for Jones’ fifth goal of the season.
New Jersey clawed one back on the power play with a dish along the blue line of its own. The brothers Hughes connected as Luke moved the puck to Jack, who glided into the left faceoff circle and fired the puck through a Toffoli screen on the power play with 4:33 to play.
The Ducks pushed their second intermission lead to two when, with 2:52 remaining, Vatrano scored his team-leading 29th goal of the season and his second of the night. His interception in the defensive zone ignited a counterattack that included two cross-ice passes from Gudas and then Terry, who engineered Vatrano’s forehand-to-backhand score.
“Awesome, never thought it would happen, to be honest with you,” Vatrano said of reaching the cusp of a 30-goal campaign. “I’ve been fortunate to play with some great guys this year who put me in a great spot to succeed.”
Even more so than the second stanza, the first period was carried analytically by New Jersey, which accumulated some 82% of the expected goals, but won on the scoreboard by the Ducks.
Dostál stopped 18 of 19 shots in the period, including four on one power play and six of seven high-danger chances. He was tethered to a tenuous 1-0 lead 3:37 into the game after McTavish won a puck battle in the corner and, as he fell to the ice, slid the puck to a wide-open Vatrano, who went five hole for a goal from the doorstep.
Meier scored with 2:36 remaining but only after Dostál had stoned Toffoli’s efforts from point-blank range. Meier was also the first victim of Dostál’s larcenous stanza, which also saw him rob both Hughes brothers, Nico Hischier and Chris Tierney’s breakaway.
The Ducks got a goal back 51 seconds later from Henrique, who separated the puck low in the Devils’ zone on the forecheck before receiving it back from Jones for a wraparound goal. Henrique has compiled 23 points in his last 22 games and six points in his past four outings, including goal No. 18 of 2023-24.
“For me, he’s been our MVP,” Cronin said. “He’s been here for a while. A new coaching staff comes in and we’re asking him to do some things in terms of leadership with a really young group.”