ANAHEIM — A strong start. A shaky middle. A jelly-legged third. And a frantic overtime.
After all of that, the Ducks and the cellar-dwelling San Jose Sharks sorted out their final meeting of the season in a shootout, where Mason McTavish was the only player to convert out of the six who tried, claiming a 4-3 victory in the final contest of a five-game homestand that would have been a shame to lose.
Ending with an overtime shootout was not on anyone’s mind after the Ducks (33-33-8, 74 points) jumped out to a commanding lead in a wide-open first period at the Honda Center.
Following a couple of quick early chances, including a breakaway by Carter Gauthier, a redirect from Trevor Zegras at the 2:04 mark put the Ducks ahead on his 10th goal of the season.
Moments earlier, McTavish jammed the puck and Sharks goaltender Alexandar Georgiev over the goal line, wiping out a possible score and prompting a faceoff at the right circle. McTavish won it, giving Sam Colangelo a chance to fire the puck at the net, where Zegras altered the trajectory with his stick.
“However they go in, I’ll take it,” Zegras said. “When you’re playing with guys like Mase and Sammy, a real good spot is to go to net. I just feel pretty lucky that that one hit my stick, for sure.”
For Zegras, the connection extended his six-game points streak gave him double-digit goals for the first time since he scored 23 in back-to-back seasons between 2021-2023.
Following an 8-1 shellacking against the Kings on Sunday at Crypto.com Arena, the Sharks (20-44-10, 50 points) showed life at 5:28 when Russian defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin connected on his second goal in 29 games this season.
Striking a first-time slap shot from the blue line, the puck trickled through the legs of Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal, who made his third consecutive start.
Playing against the Ducks for the first time in their final meeting this season, No. 1 overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini went to the penalty box for slashing at 7:01. The worst power-play conversion rate in the NHL coming into the night belonged to the Ducks, but Jackson LaCombe’s finish through traffic nudged them above the New York Islanders with eight games left.
As the 18-year-old Celebrini watched, last year’s No. 2 overall pick Leo Carlsson occupied the slot while Gauthier clogged things up in front of Georgiev. LaCombe’s wristed wobbler snuck past everyone for his 14th goal of the season.
The Ducks invited trouble midway through the first after penalties on Olen Zellweger (holding the stick) and Drew Hellson (high stick) were called within 46 seconds of one another, handing the Sharks a two-man advantage.
Inconsistent as their penalty kill has been this season, the Ducks stood tall to retain their momentum and carry an edge into the first intermission.
Heavy pressure allowed the Ducks to keep the puck in the offensive zone at the end of the period, where Radko Gudas rifled a pair of slapshots in quick succession. The rebound off his second attempt fell to Colangelo and the hot rookie netted his seventh goal in the last 10 games at 19:01.
The 3-1 score held up throughout a choppy second period, even as the Sharks fired 14 shots on goal to the Ducks’ four.
“You get this thing called ‘point night,’” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “I think some of our guys thought it was going to be an eight-goal game and we’re not good enough to play that way. We lost our structure. They outworked us. They out-executed us. They could have scored four goals in the second period.”
That energy persisted into the third, especially after the Sharks successfully defended against a two-man disadvantage.
“After we killed that 5-on-3 I thought we did a really good job of putting pressure on them and changing the tide of the game,” Sharks forward Tyler Toffoli said.
A short time later, on the edge of the crease, Dostal got sideswiped by Collin Graf, who was retaliated against behind the net by Ducks players Olen Zellweger and Nikita Nesterenko. Officials did not blow the action dead, and the Sharks kept their wits making the most of the confusion.
“The Dostal play was an unusual situation,” Cronin said.
With three Ducks players standing shoulder to shoulder to the right of Dostal and Jacob Trouba, who returned to the lineup after missing Sunday’s loss to Toronto, effectively screening his goaltender from the slot, Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic picked out the top corner for his first of the year, cutting the score to 3-2.
Alexander Wennberg’s 10th goal of the season tied the score at 16:46 when his fellow Swede, William Eklund, whipped a pass from the left boards across the goal mouth to set-up the one-time finish with a ton of space to Dostal’s left.
During the shootout, Zegras knocked his attempt off the post and Carlsson was stuffed before McTavish delivered.
“On my move, I just went in pretty slow, kinda waited on him, opened him up and went five hole,” said McTavish, who took a team-high 11 shots. “It’s always a good sign when you’re getting a lot of looks. Obviously it’s hard sometimes not to get a little frustrated. You just have to stick with it and have a short memory.”
McTavish also tallied three assists, giving him 10 points in his last eight games.
For the Sharks, Will Smith, Celebrini and Toffoli missed their attempts.
All told, the Ducks outshot the Sharks 37-31 on the way to winning each of its three meetings with San Jose this season.