There’ll be no showdown of the second and third picks in this year’s draft this season, but Leo Carlsson and the Ducks will welcome the Columbus Blue Jackets, sans Adam Fantilli, for a match Wednesday just the same.
After splitting their recent four-game road trip, the Ducks will play the first of nine consecutive games in California. They’ll intersperse a visit to San Jose and a freeway faceoff at Crypto.com Arena between seven games at Honda Center.
Their most recent tilt was carried territorially by a Buffalo Sabres team that turned possession into threats, doubling up the Ducks in terms of high-danger chances Monday. Luckily for the Ducks, Mason McTavish’s line produced three goals after Adam Henrique opened the scoring, and John Gibson was resplendent in net.
Gibson was tested early and often, with the Sabres hitting the net with four scoring chances early and grilling Gibson time after time in the third period. He stoned J.J. Peterka on a partial breakaway, made a larcenous glove save on Tage Thompson and then stymied Buffalo’s top defenseman Rasmus Dahlin on two bids in rapid succession. In all, the Sabres outshot the Ducks 37-14 while out-chancing them 30-13 but still lost.
“Gibby won the game for us,” Coach Greg Cronin said via text of Monday’s 4-3 road victory.
Thompson, the son of Ducks assistant coach Brent Thompson, had a giveaway that led to a Ducks goal and described all four goals as “just gifts that we gave them.” For their part, the Ducks were also unsatisfied with the pressure they put on Gibson, who gave the Ducks a rare win in a contest they did not control analytically.
“I forget to talk about (Gibson) sometimes, because he just is like that every night for us. He really is the backbone of our team,” said winger Troy Terry, who scored the game-winning goal and assisted on both of Frank Vatrano’s tallies to join McTavish as a three-point producer Monday.
Carlsson, who missed the early-season matchup in Columbus that the Ducks rallied to win 3-2 in overtime, had a quiet road trip, collecting only a secondary assist on a first-period goal in a 5-1 victory in Ottawa. Carlsson has been a far more prolific player at home than on the road, which could foretell a productive stretch given the Ducks’ upcoming schedule. He’s accumulated 14 points in 17 matches within the friendly confines of Honda Center and posted a plus-one rating. Room service hasn’t quite agreed with his stomach as he’s added just seven points in 19 road games across which he’s earned a minus-9 rating.
Carlsson ranks third in points per game among rookies with at least 10 games played. Fantilli, who scored a goal in the prior meeting with the Ducks, sat third in overall rookie scoring when he sustained a calf laceration from Seattle forward Jared McCann’s skate in the Blue Jackets’ penultimate game before the All-Star break.
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Columbus, which dismissed its general manager last week amid the latest in a series of campaigns to forget, has also been without natural goal-scorer Patrik Laine since Dec. 14. Initially, he was recovering from a broken left clavicle, but last month he entered the NHL and NHL Players Association’s player assistance program, taking an indefinite leave of absence to prioritize what he described on social media as his “mental health and well-being.”
Columbus at Ducks
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Honda Center
How to watch: Bally Sports SoCal