ANAHEIM — The Ducks faced six different deficits but surmounted them all to beat the New York Rangers, 5-4 in overtime, on Friday night at Honda Center.
The Ducks moved to a .500 points percentage for the season – they haven’t finished .500 or above since 2018 – while the Rangers lost for the ninth time in a dozen opportunities.
Leo Carlsson scored a goal and facilitated three others: Alex Killorn’s short-handed tally, Cutter Gauthier’s putback and Olen Zellweger’s late equalizer. Gauthier’s first assist and Jackson LaCombe’s second led to Mason McTavish’s redirection for the comeback-capping overtime winner. Lukáš Dostál had 27 saves.
New York’s J.T. Miller and Alexis Lafreniére assisted on each other’s tallies. Artemi Panarin set one up for Adam Fox, and they both earned helpers on Mika Zibanejad’s power-play marker. Igor Shesterkin extended his career-long string of starts to nine, stopping 28 shots.
In overtime, it took just 59 seconds for LaCombe and Gauthier to masterfully open up a quick tap for McTavish, giving him his first 20-goal campaign and his first game-winning goal of the season.
In the third period, the Ducks scored three goals and killed four of their penalties, including a substantial chunk of five-on-three time. They sent the game to OT off Zellweger’s tally trailing the rush, set up by Carlsson’s reversal to Pavel Mintyukov, who found Zellweger entering the zone with 1:45 left.
With 5:48 on the game clock, Gauthier’s backhanded follow-up bid beat Shesterkin cleanly to have the Ducks’ deficit. LaCombe’s neutral-zone takeaway set up a shot for Carlsson, creating the meaty rebound for Gauthier’s 15th goal of 2024-25.
The Ducks had gained life 2:22 into the closing stanza but things threatened to unravel after Carlsson twice moved the puck ahead for himself to gain speed up ice, challenging Will Borgen and lifting a shot over Shesterkin on the stick side. The gust from his 19th goal and fifth in five games would prove ephemeral, as soon after former Rangers captain Jacob Trouba exited the game after crashing into the boards, the Rangers scored a 5-on-4 goal. The Blueshirts’ big guns of Panarin and Fox worked to set up Zibanejad’s one-timer from the left circle, 2:13 after Carlsson’s goal.
The second period sent the Ducks to the dressing room down 3-1, despite having a two-man advantage and a sterling chance for Pavel Mintyukov, who couldn’t control a rebound mere inches from an open net. Mintyukov had a sterling chance earlier that Shesterkin stopped.
A brief 14 seconds into the middle frame, the Rangers extended their edge to two goals off Lafreniére’s perfectly placed short-side snipe. Miller had the only assist on the goal after stealing the puck back on the forecheck, adding to his line’s dangerous body of work.
New York had taken a lead with 2:12 to play in the opening period, when Miller snuck up the left flank to make it a three-on-two rush off a measured breakout for the Rangers. A saucer pass got over the stick of LaCombe and Radko Gudas’ pinch got him a hit but not a dispossession, with the puck finding Miller all alone for his third goal in as many games.
Killorn had quelled the Rangers momentum with a shorthanded equalizer less than two minutes before the Rangers reassumed control.
Carlsson was one of three Ducks penalty killers stuffing Johnny Brodzinski’s shot attempt from the low slot. Carlsson recovered the puck, chipped it ahead to himself and then sent a buttery pass across to an open Killorn, who drove his lane cleanly all the way to the net. Just as K’Andre Miller appeared to have caught him, Killorn flicked a quick bid off Shesterkin and then followed his own shot for his 18th goal of the campaign. He has three goals and five points in his past three games, and was robbed by Shesterkin’s pad five-on-five prior to his goal.
The Ducks had a similarly aggressive start against the Rangers as they did against the Boston Bruins on Wednesday, mounting an 11-3 shot advantage at one point and earning the game’s first power play. But a near miss, Jansen Harkins’ redirection attempt that hit the post, and some misfortune made it so that the Rangers scored the first goal of the match.
At the 3:20 mark, 26 seconds after the Rangers’ penalty expired, calamity befell the Ducks. First, LaCombe’s stick broke on a routine pass, giving the Rangers a rush with just one defender, Gudas, back. The puck came to their most dangerous player, Artemi Panarin, but LaCombe recovered to aid Gudas in pressuring him into a shot that missed the net, clanging off the end boards. It bounced directly to Fox, who lifted a backhand up under the crossbar to open the scoring.
More to come on this story.