ANAHEIM — Both the Ducks and Ottawa Senators had traded away veteran talent earlier in the day but there were still 60 minutes to be played on Wednesday night at Honda Center, where the Ducks prevailed, 2-1, for their third win in four games.
Ryan Strome and Alex Killorn scored for the Ducks, and Lukáš Dostál turned away 29 Ottawa shots. The Ducks dealt Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick to the Edmonton Oilers earlier in the day, marking the third and fourth roster players they’ve shipped out in a season when they have been riddled with injuries as well.
Mark Kastelic scored the first goal of the game and the only one for Ottawa. Mads Sogaard made 14 saves. The Sens had moved Vladimir Tarasenko to the Presidents’ Trophy favorites, the Florida Panthers, on Wednesday morning.
The Ducks generated a two-on-one rush just as Ottawa attempted to pull its goalie for a sixth attacker. Though Sogaard had the answer for Brett Leason’s wrist shot, the extra forward had already come on, leading to a too-many-men penalty for the Senators that all but sealed their fate with 1:33 to play, especially once they took a second penalty 53 seconds later.
Tim Stützle and Dominik Kubalik each had solid chances in the final 20 minutes and a near-goal turned into a goalmouth scrum, but it was the Ducks earning their first lead of the game and the one that stood at the end of the night.
At the 3:27 mark of the third period, Cam Fowler made a D-to-D pass to Olen Zellweger, who adjusted his sight line and shooting angle to put the puck onto Killorn’s blade for a deft deflection goal. Killorn got position and fended off Thomas Chabot to get the tip for his 10th goal of the season, the same total as Strome.
Parker Kelly hit the same post that Frank Vatrano did a period earlier right around the game’s midpoint with what could have been a go-ahead goal.
The Ducks had knotted the score 4:42 into the second frame, when a nifty passing sequence became a broken play and then a goal.
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Urho Vaakanainen’s stretch pass sprung Leason through the neutral zone before he centered the puck for Vatrano, who touch-passed it to Strome. As Strome sought to find the open Vatrano between the circles, his pass was disrupted by a kneeling Jake Sanderson, but the puck banked off the Ottawa defenseman’s knee and into the net.
In the first period, the Senators struck early and Vatrano struck the post late, leaving the hosts trailing at the first intermission for the 27th time this season in what would become their sixth victory under those circumstances.
It was a low-to-high-to-low play as Matthew Highmore moved the puck from behind the net to the point, where Artem Zub flicked a shot that Kastelic tipped low to the far side for his third goal of 2023-24, 2:44 into the contest.
Next up, the Ducks host the Dallas Stars, a contending club that has beaten them by razor-thin margins in two prior meetings.
More to come on this story.