Fresh off a convincing victory over a veteran team, the Ducks will next compete in the rubber match of their three-game homestand, which will pit them against the Nashville Predators.
In a 5-1 conquest of the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, it was Mason McTavish and Alex Killorn leading the way with a pair of goals apiece. Yet Killorn credited the recently recovered Trevor Zegras with helping open the ice for him and linemate Leo Carlsson, who also flashed some sparks Thursday.
While Killorn credited Zegras with being able to hang onto the puck and make creative plays, it was a simple touch pass by the charismatic forward that cleared the way for Killorn’s first goal.
“That play he makes is a play that not a lot of guys can make. It’s a play that may not get talked about, but it’s a huge play and it kind of creates the whole goal,” Killorn said. “Little plays like that, even though they’re small, create a lot of space out there.”
Zegras has been hindered significantly the past two seasons by injury: a groin malady to start last season, a torn meniscus he sustained in early December and, in between, a broken ankle last year in Nashville against these same Predators.
In that very game he made a similarly savvy play, ducking under two defenders and making an escape pass so slick that it was difficult to appreciate in real time. Then, Ducks coach Greg Cronin estimated there were only a handful of forwards in the league with the skill and instincts to break the Ducks out of trouble with Zegras’ mix of effectiveness and nonchalance.
Before his latest injury, Zegras had a spurt of six points in four games and was growing more assertive on the power play, as Killorn remarked during his absence.
“The big thing that I think he’s done, and we saw more and more of it right before he got hurt, is that he’s picked the pace and the intensity of his game up on both sides of the puck,” said Cronin, adding that Zegras was also getting used to the rigors of making plays along the wall given that he’d been spending more time at wing than center of late.
On a team that’s not only been pressed for finishing ability but also touch and creativity in the passing game, Zegras was welcomed back with open arms in the Ducks’ past two outings.
“His IQ, offensively, can transfer over defensively and on those plays [exiting the defensive zone],” Cronin said. “He made several plays throughout the game where some guys might just panic and chop (the puck). He’s got the poise to take it and find the open stick blade.”
Zegras is one of several players who has forged a strong individual relationship with Cronin, though Cronin’s rapport with the club came into question a couple times this season after comments by former Ducks defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin, now with the Dallas Stars, and, more recently, longtime Ducks winger Jakob Silfverberg, who returned to his native Sweden this season.
Cronin said that while he “could be called intense,” he was surprised at the comments from both players, and that Lyubushkin reached out to him and told him he had been misquoted. He also had contact with Silfverberg – who also mentioned in the interview the time when Bruce Boudreau scratched him for the Dodger Stadium game in 2014 – to help clear the air, since the two developed a strong relationship in Cronin’s first season with the team.
Next up will be Nashville, which beat out the Ducks in the summer’s free-agent frenzy by landing at least two players they coveted, Stanley Cup winners Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault.
Since Dec. 10, Marchessault has 25 points in 19 games, good for 12th in the NHL during that span, and Stamkos has 20 points in the same period. That placed them behind team-leading scorer Filip Forsberg (30 points, fourth in the league since Dec. 10) after the two free-agent additions stumbled out of the starting blocks.
All that, plus the continued excellence of Roman Josi, hasn’t gotten the Predators much in the standings: they have the third-lowest points percentage in the NHL and sit six points behind the Ducks.
Nashville at Ducks
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Where: Honda Center
TV/radio: KTTV (Ch. 11), Victory+