The Ducks begin a rare two-game set with a division rival tonight in the Pacific Northwest, facing off with the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena.
PUCK DROP: 7 P.M. | TV: BALLY SPORTS SOCAL | DUCKS STREAM | NHL GAMECENTER
Anaheim hits the road looking to build on a productive end to its three-game homestand, earning three of four possible standings points in matchups with Chicago and Tampa Bay. The Ducks earned a 4-0 shutout win over Chicago, and took the Bolts to overtime two nights later, but would fall early in the extra session on Anthony Cirelli's game-winning goal.
"That was a solid game for us," winger Ross Johnston said. "We played a full 60 for the most part. That's a team that's going to get zone time and you try to keep them to the outside. Overall, I thought it was a good effort. When you get to overtime the game can obviously go either way, so they scored the last goal and that's that but overall I liked our effort."
"we have bodies back. We have healthy people here," head coach Greg Cronin added. "I think it might be the first time in I don't know how long that we've had the same lineup in back-to-back games. I think when you have that, you're able to build some chemistry into some rhythm with the team, the lines and the d-pairings as well."
Johnston netted his first goal as a Duck in the OT setback, finishing a setup feed from Jakob Silfverberg off the rush as part of what he and Cronin each called a productive night for the fourth line.
"We want to just hound pucks," Johnston said. "Some games it comes to you and some games it doesn't, but our goal on the fourth line is to get on pucks, make it challenging on their defense, make them turn and be physical. For the most part, I thought we did that tonight and we got rewarded with one goal."
Between the pipes, rookie netminder Lukas Dostal continued his impressive debut campaign in the NHL with 25 saves. Dostal leads all rookie goaltenders in saves this season (966) and is one of seven qualified first-year players with a save percentage north of .900 on the year.
"He's been great," Johnston said. "He's been great all year. Both of our goalies have been great all year. There's been multiple games where we've hung them out to dry. We've tightened up a little bit defensively and they're still doing their job in there and they're playing great. Hats off to [Dostal]. That's two great games in a row."
The Ducks now stand at 24-43-4 on the season with 11 regular season games still to play. Anaheim will visit Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton after consecutive dates with Seattle.
"We've got to shoot the puck and work on getting more zone time," Cronin said of the trip. "When the turnovers happen, we have less zone time and we're chasing the puck.
"We spoke to the players about what they want to see [to end the season]. They want to see a winning record in the last 12 games (counting Sunday vs. Tampa Bay). They want to see us generate more goals, which they felt was part of us being a better possession team on the cycles...And they want to see more shots. Now, they need to take ownership of it."
Meanwhile, Seattle enters play Tuesday looking to snap an eight-game losing skid that's dimmed any hopes of a late postseason push in the Emerald City. That winless drought continued Sunday in a 5-1 loss to the Canadiens, highlighted by four first-period goals against.
“The message is very simple,” Seattle head coach Dave Hakstol told the team's Bob Condor. “Taking all of the emotion out of it, we've got to take a little bit of the weight of the world off our shoulders. We've seen it here at home especially, we felt a little bit of that stress. One or two things go the wrong way, and it's had too much of an effect on us. We've got to be able to brush that off and move on to the next play like we normally do.”
Seattle (28-29-13, 69 points) sits sixth in the Pacific Division, 16 points back of a Wild Card position.
