ANAHEIM — The Ducks snapped their seven-game losing streak and avoided a season-series sweep at the hands of the Central Division’s worst team, the Chicago Blackhawks, whom they dominated, 4-0, on Thursday night at Honda Center.
The battle near the bottom of the Western Conference featured the first and second selections in last June’s NHL draft, though Chicago’s Connor Bedard was effectively a non-entity and the Ducks’ Leo Carlsson, who factored into a goal without earning a point, left the game in the second period with an apparent knee injury.
Brett Leason scored a goal and assisted on one of Alex Killorn’s two tallies before Frank Vatrano sealed Chicago’s fate with a power-play marker. Lukáš Dostál turned away 29 shots for his first career shutout.
The Ducks were shorthanded just once and killed the penalty. They’ve gone 5 for 6 on the PK in their past two games after a disastrous stretch that saw them lose four of their five most deployed penalty killers to trades and injuries.
Arvid Söderblom made 21 saves for Chicago, after earning a 7-2 victory over the Ducks on March 12.
There was no third-period rally for the visitors, who sustained a second loss in a fight when Ryan Strome took down Jarred Tinordi, and then surrendered Vatrano’s elusive 30th goal of the season during a five-on-three situation with 9:29 to play. It was the first time in six games the Ducks had scored on a power play.
The Ducks set up Vatrano with a one-timer from the right faceoff circle that he missed wide. When Cam Fowler dished to him anew, he took his time on the dot, changed his angle and tickled the twine. Vatrano had been stuck on 29 goals since March 1, with his nine-game goal drought entering the match having tied his longest dry spell of the season.
An early two-on-one rush fell by the wayside in the second period for the Ducks, but they went on to pour in three goals, albeit at a cost as they lost Carlsson for the night and possibly longer.
Nine seconds after their power play expired, the Ducks stretched their lead to 3-0. Olen Zellweger passed from the point to below the goal line for Leason, who found Killorn in the right circle. He whipped a shot to the far side for his second goal of the game and 14th of the season with 1:34 left in the period.
Leason was the finisher on the Ducks’ second goal, his 11th of 2023-24, just before the midway mark of the match. Pavel Mintyukov stood Jason Dickinson up at the blue line, knocking the puck to Ben Meyers, who found Leason in space in the defensive zone. He zoomed through the neutral zone and then let fly with a wrist shot that went between Jarred Tinordi’s legs and beat Söderblom inside the far post.
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Between those goals, however, the Ducks lost Carlsson when Alex Vlasic made a knee-on-knee hit on him, though no penalty was called. Carlsson was unable to support his weight on the leg as he left the ice and made his way down the tunnel, ending his evening prematurely and casting doubt on his status moving forward.
If he were to miss time, it would be the fourth injury to sideline 2023’s No. 2 overall pick after beginning the season with a lower-body injury, later spraining his MCL and then sustaining a concussion.
The Ducks had opened the scoring 3:10 into the middle frame, when a clean offensive-zone faceoff win by Carlsson keyed a successful sequence. A D-to-D pass from Urho Vaakanainen to Gustav Lindström created a shot that Killorn redirected into the net.
The opening 20 minutes were relatively quiet offensively with the Ducks quieting a strong rush by Bedard and the game’s first penalty as well. They also made a bit of noise, with the sounds of the crowd as well as the thud on the ice when Ross Johnston felled Tinordi in a fight.
More to come on this story.