Gauthier stays hot with late goal, Ducks rally past Flames for 4th win in row

CALGARY -- Cutter Gauthier broke a tie with 1:34 remaining in the third period for the Anaheim Ducks, who rallied for their fourth straight win with a 5-3 victory against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Friday.

“I’m not really surprised,” Ducks forward Leo Carlsson said of Gauthier’s clutch performance. “He’s just a goal-scoring machine. Every time he gets those opportunities, he’s just going to score. It’s nice to have him on our team, for sure.”

Gauthier, who has 10 goals during a five-game streak, took a pass from Mikael Granlund and one-timed a shot from the right circle to the short side past Dustin Wolf.

“Just keeping it simple and shooting the puck,” Gauthier said of his hot streak. “The more times you shoot the puck, the odds of it going in are more in your favor, so keep it pretty simple. Shoot it.”

Carlsson had a goal and an assist, and Granlund and Beckett Sennecke each had two assists for the Ducks (9-7-1), who have scored at least five goals in each of their past seven games (5-1-1) and were coming off a 5-4 win at the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.

“We've been way better in our games,” Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville said. “Tonight (was) comparable to last night, where our third period was our best. Seemed like we gained a lot of momentum. We had an awful start. Give them credit, and then we chipped away as the game went along.”

Lukas Dostal allowed three goals on 11 shots in the first period before being replaced by Ville Husso, who stopped all 10 shots he faced in relief.

“I didn’t like the way we were playing across the board, so it was one of those nights where, 'Hey, let’s go, change it up,” Quenneville said.

Joel Farabee, William Stromgren and Joel Hanley scored for the Flames (7-9-1), who were 7-3-1 in their past 11 games. Zayne Parekh and Morgan Frost each had two assists, and Wolf made 24 saves.

“I really liked our first period,” Calgary coach Ryan Huska said. “After that, I thought we stopped moving our feet and I thought the physicality in our game kind of went away, so I thought they took over the second and third periods.”

Stromgren gave Calgary a 1-0 lead at 2:23 of the first period when he picked up a rebound in front of the net and backhanded a shot past Dostal.

It was his second goal in his third game of the season since being called up from the Calgary Wranglers of the American Hockey League.

“I think we started slaking a little bit, kind of going outside of our game plan,” Stromgren said. “Definitely just watch some video and see what we can do about it.”

Jeff Malott tied it 1-1 just 27 seconds later after he intercepted an outlet pass by Flames defenseman Simon Nemec. Wolf stopped his initial shot, but Malott put the rebound through the goalie’s pads.

Hanley put the Flames back ahead 2-1 at 16:29 with his first goal since April 5, 2025. Dostal made a pad save to stop Frost’s initial shot, but the puck kicked out into the left circle to Hanley, who scored on a slap shot over the blocker.

Hanley entered the lineup for defenseman Kevin Bahl, who was a late scratch with a lower-body injury.

“I didn’t think I was going to be playing and then, all of a sudden, they told me I was in,” Hanley said. “So I just tried to dial it in as quick as I could and obviously nice to chip in offensively. It would’ve been nice to get to win there to make it feel a little bit better.”

Said Huska: “It’s a hard position for a player to be in, but it’s the NHL and that’s the job at times and the one thing with Joel, we kept him around the room and he took most warm-ups.”

Farabee’s power-play goal extended it to 3-1 at 19:02. He took a cross-ice pass from Parekh and scored on a wrist shot into a wide-open net as Dostal slid out of position to his left.

Tristan Luneau cut it to 3-2 at 12:02 of the second period. He took a touch pass from Jackson LaCombe and buried a wrist shot from the high slot over Wolf’s glove.

Carlsson tied it 3-3 with a power-play goal 55 seconds in the third period, receiving a pass from behind the net from Sennecke and also lifting a shot over Wolf’s glove.

“He's been great the last 10 games,” Quenneville said of Carlsson. “He’s been possessed. Wants the puck all over the ice and making things happen.”

Following Gauthier’s go-ahead goal, Nikita Nesterenko scored into an empty net with 14 seconds remaining for the 5-3 final.

NOTES: Gauthier became the first player in Ducks history to score 10 goals in a five-game span. … LaCombe extended his point and assist streaks to nine games. He passed Scott Niedermayer (eight games in 2006-07) and Oleg Tverdovsky (eight games in 1999-00) for the longest point streak by an Anaheim defenseman. … Parekh became the second Flames defenseman in the past 25 years to record at least two career multi-point games before age 21, following Dion Phaneuf (11 in 2005-06). … Carlsson (17 games) surpassed Paul Kariya (19 games in 1996-97) as the fastest Ducks skater to 10 multipoint games in a season.… The Ducks earned their third multigoal comeback win of the season. The Buffalo Sabres (four) are the only team with more.