The Ducks will pivot away from their seventh consecutive loss and toward “The Great Eight” when they welcome Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals on Thursday.
Although the Ducks rebounded substantively from an 8-2 loss Sunday in Edmonton, they struggled to turn possessions and shots into goals during a 3-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday.
As Ducks coach Greg Cronin so directly described their predicament, “We have a hard time scoring.”
They’ve mustered only a dozen goals amid this seven-game funk that’s been played entirely without center Trevor Zegras and defenseman Jamie Drysdale. Rookie center Leo Carlsson sat out both games in Canada. Already short three of their most menacing offensive threats, they were without defensemen Radko Gudas (lower-body, day-to-day) in the match against Vancouver, most of which they played with five defensemen after Ilya Lyubushkin sustained an upper-body injury.
Among those five rearguards were three rookies and a fourth player with barely a full season’s worth of NHL experience, 86 career games. It was a group that the Ducks’ lone veteran blue-liner, Cam Fowler, praised in an interview on the Bally Sports broadcast.
Though all seven of their losses have come in regulation, Tuesday’s effort saw the Ducks more than double up the Canucks in shots through two periods. Ryan Strome scored on the power play and Mason McTavish dinged the post late with a potential tying goal.
“Our special teams have been a lot better than last year. I don’t want to keep playing the positive card, but that’s the way we’ve had to look at it,” Strome said.
Vancouver’s game-winner was of the disheartening variety, as broadcaster and former NHL goalie Brian Hayward described Gibson taking his eyes off the puck as “the cardinal sin” for a netminder.
“It’s an odd play in front of our net, our goalie is tussling with [Andrei Kuzmenko], and it was just a tough way to start a third period after we built up so much momentum in the second,” Cronin said.
Ovechkin and the Capitals have endured their own momentum swings this season. Puck drop Thursday will be less than 24 hours after the Caps will have taken on the rapidly ascending Kings, and Washington’s most recent outings had already seen it beaten by two of the worst teams by record in the NHL this season, the Oilers and San Jose Sharks.
Yet before that, they had reeled off nine wins in 11 games to more than offset a tepid start to their campaign. Similarly, the Ducks had split their four games prior to this skid, and previously had reeled off six consecutive wins.
Washington’s success has largely hinged on strong defensive performances, though they have been led offensively, predictably, by Ovechkin, who tops the team in points. His five goals, however, are three fewer than Dylan Strome’s team-leading total, and Ovechkin, 38, is on pace for about 23 goals this season after averaging more than 45 a year for 18 seasons. In lockout-shortened 2012-13, Ovechkin still scored 24 times in just 45 games. Yet even such a subpar season for Ovechkin would put his total at 854 career goals, only 40 shy of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record.
Washington at Ducks
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Honda Center
How to watch: Bally Sports West