Postgame Notes and Quotes - November 12 vs. Nashville

Postgame NotesAnaheim 2 vs. Nashville 1 SONov. 12, 2018Honda Center8-8-3, 19 points
The Ducks concluded their three-game homestand with a 2-1 shootout victory over the Nashville Predators. Rickard Rakell recorded his first career game-deciding goal in the shootout and improved to 7-for-20 in his career (35.0%). Pontus Aberg opened the shootout with his first career shootout goal in his second career attempt.

The Ducks recorded their 10th game allowing two goals or less this season. Anaheim ranks tied for second among NHL teams in games allowing two or fewer goals (also Vancouver and Nashville; Boston leads with 11 games).
The Ducks were a perfect 7-for-7 on the penalty kill vs. Nashville. Over the last five games, Anaheim has successfully killed 19-of-21 (90.5%) opponent power-play opportunities.
Ryan Getzlaf scored his fourth goal of the season to open the scoring at the 19:30 mark of the second period. The Anaheim center earned his ninth point (4-5=9) in his last eight games, while improving his career marks against Nashville to 13-30=43 points in 38 career games.
Rakell registered his team-leading 10th assist of the season on the Getzlaf goal, which gave him points in five of his last seven games (1-5=6). Hampus Lindholm also collected his eighth assist of 2018-19, giving him points/assists in consecutive games (0-2=2).
John Gibson stopped 34-of-35 shots and 3-of-4 shootout attempts en route to his 99th career NHL win.
Randy Carlyle moved within one win of tying Bob Hartley (463) for 29th among NHL coaches in all-time wins.
Anaheim improved to 8-2-0 in its last 10 home games vs. Nashville dating to Jan. 26, 2013, outscoring its Central Division opponent 33-25. The Ducks also handed the Predators their first road loss of 2018-19, snapping a season-opening eight-game road winning streak.
Tonight's attendance was 16,629. Anaheim's next game is slated for Wednesday vs. the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena (7:30 p.m. PT).
Postgame Quotes
Anaheim Ducks
Rickard Rakell
On his shootout goal
I had a little plan before I went out there. Previous times this year hasn't really worked for me, so I just tried to throw everything out there. It was really nice to see it go in.
On beating the league-leading Predators
It was a great test for us, especially playing against those guys. It shows we can play with any team in this league.
John Gibson
On his stop on Johansen in overtime
They have a good power play, so we knew they were going to get shots. That one just hit my glove, and I scrambled. I was fortunate enough to get a piece of my glove on it. Whatever it hit, I kept it out.
On the team's defensive effort
It's definitely a step in the right direction, and hopefully something we can build off. It seems like we've been able to win one here and there, but not go on a run. Hopefully we can start stringing some together, take this as a stepping stone and build from it.
Head Coach Randy Carlyle
On the team's effort
Just 20 guys competing. That's what we're asking. We felt we embarrassed ourselves with our effort and our lack of competiveness in our last game. We needed a response game to feel good about ourselves. We felt we got that tonight.
On limiting Nashville's chances
We wanted to make sure we could break the puck out more effectively and be stronger in defensive zone coverage. Those were two areas we were much better at tonight. We chart our scoring chances, and tonight was the lowest amount of 5-on-5 scoring chances we've given up in a long, long time, and I'm talking years. You gotta feel good about that, but it's our responsibility now to duplicate that as we go forward.
Nashville Predators
Ryan Ellis
On Anaheim playing them as well as probably any team has all season
I think it was. They played well. I think it was less to do with what they did and more to do with the decisions and the plays that we made. They obviously played hard. They played a good game, but I think we could have made some better decisions out there at times.
On Nashville' power play
I think it is a work in progress. Obviously, we would love to be scoring lots of goals on there. Right now, we are trying to simplify. Get pucks to the net. See what we can get going here.
Kevin Fiala
On tonight's game
We fought back again and got one point so we are happy about that. I think we have to play a better game if we want two points. We had a chance to bring two points back, but overall we have to play better. We can't just think we can do it in the third period all the time.
On giving credit to Gibson for his goaltending performance
Our goalie is probably the best goalie in the league. Every goalie is good in this league. It is the best league in the world. Credit for him. He saved some pretty nice shots in the end, in the OT [Overtime] and the PP [Power Play] there.
Head Coach Peter Laviolette
On having more to give
Yeah, I mean I would agree with that, again I thought we fought hard in the third period, tried to push all the way to the end, fell short. I thought we had room for improvement in the first couple periods.
On the power play
The first half of the game we tried to switch the units, and it's really tough to do without practice time. I take that one on me, I was trying something different here. We switched them back at the end, I thought we started to get some looks in the overtime. We could've won the game a bunch of times on the power play, and it just didn't go for us, so that's where we're at right now with it. We'll continue to work at it, it's gotta be better, but there was an awful lot of looks, probably twelve or thirteen quality chances on the power play tonight.