Ahead of Friday’s meeting with the Minnesota Wild at Honda Center, the Ducks sought to spark some offense with reconfigured personnel.
Reports from practice indicated that Leo Carlsson would be flanked by lunch-pail linemates Isac Lundeström and Robby Fabbri on the top line. Notably, Mason McTavish skated on the fourth line.
The Ducks have been the NHL’s least prolific team offensively in terms of results – goals and goals per game – but rank 22nd of 32 teams in expected goals per 60 minutes on MoneyPuck’s leaderboard.
Cutter Gauthier tops the team in shots on goal and Frank Vatrano is tied for second, yet the two have combined for just one goal – a Vatrano empty-netter. Despite a similar lack of tangible rewards, Trevor Zegras has shown bright flashes of the skill that made him a sharply ascending star prior to a nightmarish 2023-24 filled with injury setbacks and trade speculation..
So, are the Ducks’ scorers due?
“I would think so. We’re all fishing for quarters now,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said.
Despite the Ducks’ expected scoring outpacing their actual output, their possession numbers have been underwhelming overall and the main reason they’ve enjoyed some modest success (.417 points percentage) has been their goaltending. While they’ve scored 10 goals below their expected five-on-five total, Lukáš Dostál has saved nearly a dozen goals above expected at 5v5, the most of any goalie this season.
Yet in Tuesday’s 5-1 drubbing by the Vancouver Canucks and their prior loss, a 4-2 flop against Chicago, Dostál was beaten by extraneous factors like massive screens, passes through seams and last-instant deflections.
“He’s been our star player this year and he still played well,” forward Brock McGinn said after the Chicago game. “We’ve got to do a better job of trying to score some more goals for him to give him a cushion.”
While the Ducks have been attempting to suck the Pacific Ocean through a coffee straw at even strength, their power play has been flowing freely in recent games. Of the three goals they’ve scored on this homestand, two have come with an augmented attack (one goal came five-on-four and another six-on-four). They have four man-advantage markers in four games, and they belong to four different scorers (Carlsson, McTavish, Troy Terry and Olen Zellweger).
The Wild has been headed in the opposite direction on the power play, having failed to convert on their past 14 opportunities. That includes an 0-for-4 performance Tuesday, when perfection could have potentially turned a lopsided loss into a narrow victory as they fell 5-1 to the Kings, who iced the game with an empty-netter.
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Kirill Kaprizov, who was recently tied for the NHL lead in scoring and remained in the top four entering Thursday’s action, was struck in the face by a puck in the second period against the Kings, but returned in the third after receiving stitches.
Even with Tuesday’s loss, the Wild have the Western Conference’s second-best points percentage. Decorated veteran Marc-Andre Fleury was slated to start in San Jose on Thursday, meaning the Ducks will likely face Filip Gustavsson.
Minnesota at Ducks
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Honda Center
How to watch: Victory+, KCOP (Ch. 13)