Recap: Ducks Give Boston a Battle in 3-1 Defeat at Honda Center

The Ducks put up a tremendous fight against an undefeated Boston Bruins juggernaut, only to fall 3-1 in a tight battle tonight at Honda Center.

NHL GAMECENTER | DUCKS STREAM | PHOTO GALLERY

Mason McTavish gave the Ducks a brief lead with the game's first goal five minutes into the third period, but the Bruins responded with a pair of Matthew Poitras tallies and never looked back.

Boston improved to a perfect 5-0-0 on the season while Anaheim fell to 1-4-0. Anaheim's opponents thus far this season are a combined 20-5-1. 

"It's kind of the same thing as the last couple games," McTavish said. "We're taking steps, especially from last year. We're outshooting teams, out-chancing them, we just gotta bear down and capitalize on our chances."

The Ducks and Bruins battled through a scoreless opening 40 minutes in which they each failed to convert on a number of power play chances. Anaheim netminder John Gibson stopped all 19 shots he faced while Boston goalie Linus Ullmark stopped 18 of 18.

After Ullmark (31 saves) turned away a number of chances early in the third, Anaheim finally broke through on the rush when McTavish punched in a rebound off a Ryan Strome shot into a wide open net.

The Bs quickly tied it up when Poitras one-timed a shot home from the slot on a feed from Morgan Geekie.

Boston took its first lead not long after that as Poitras pounced on a rebound and shuttled it past Gibson.

The Bruins put the game away on an empty netter by Brad Marchand with 2 1/2 minutes left after the Ducks sent Gibson to the bench for an extra attacker.

"Sitting here the minutes after the game," Strome said, "it’s frustrating. But I think the way we’ve played through the first five games, I don’t think anyone really has any disappointment in that. We need to find a way to get our power play better. We need to find a way to, maybe, get our special teams or a penalty kill just a bit better. It was a lot better today. But we need to find a way to win games."

The Bruins set an NHL record with 135 standings points last season before being eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs by the Florida Panthers and have been off to a hot start to this season.

Despite the 31 shots, Ducks first-year coach Greg Cronin wants his team to put the puck on net even more. "It's like I told them, it's a game of inches. We had plenty of opportunities, I keep saying it's like a broken record, we won't shoot the puck. We had the puck the whole second period, I don't know if we had 8 shots, we don't shoot it. A team that doesn't score a lot of goals, we've gotta shoot pucks."

Ducks 18-year-old rookie center Leo Carlsson was held out of the lineup tonight as part of a development plan focusing on managing the schedule of the early portion of his season. Defenseman Jamie Drysdale missed his third straight game with a lower body injury.

The Ducks embark on a four-game road trip this coming week that includes a rematch with the Bruins in Boston on Thursday. It's a chance for Cronin to learn a lot about what his team is bringing. 

"The process includes culture creation, like creating standards, expectations, starts with compete, you know, how hard guys work," Cronin said. "We know going into the season that we're not going to have a handful of aces and kings, so we gotta play our cards right, but it's always gotta be driven by work. So, we've demonstrated that every game, right? I can't fault our team for their compete level. They're working their tails off... So, it's a process."