Preview: Ducks Cap Homestand with Battle vs. Rival Sharks

The Ducks will finish a five-game homestand with a vist from a division rival, tonight hosting the San Jose Sharks at Honda Center.

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Anaheim enters the homestand finale with a 2-2-0 mark through four games, but coming off a narrow 3-2 defeat to Toronto Sunday night. The Ducks tied the game early in the third period on Sam Colangelo's power-play goal, but the Maple Leafs would reclaim the lead with less than nine minutes to play and hang on from there.

"We had our chances," head coach Greg Cronin said. "It was one of those games going either way and ironically, their fourth line goes out and scores the winning goal on a wrist shot from the wall. We just lost coverage at the net-front. I told them after the second period, the game was evolving into a low-high pass-shot game and that’s what went in but it’s a back-to-back for them and we felt like as the game went along, if we put it deep and we were able to sustain pressure they would lose a little energy. I thought the game plan was working but they got that goal at the end there."

“I thought we battled hard the whole game," added defenseman Jackson LaCombe. "They’re a really good team and I thought we stuck with it the whole time. They got a good bounce with the tip at the end and we just couldn’t get one back.”

The loss dropped Anaheim to 32-33-8 on the season. The Ducks now sit 15 points back of a playoff spot with nine games left to play, not yet mathematically eliminated from postseason contention, but the club remains on pace for a 21-point jump in the standings - the second biggest rise in the NHL this season.

"I’ve been up-and-down throughout the whole year and I think each time I come back up [from AHL San Diego], it seems like the team has gotten better and better," Colangelo said.

"It's really good for our players to go through this, but the little details, like face-offs, end up being a big part of games like this," Cronin said. "That's one of those things that we're going to have to learn from."

Despite the loss, Anaheim's young players continue to drive the club's offense in recent weeks, with LaCombe, Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and Mason McTavish among those leading the way. LaCombe tallied his 29th assist of the season Sunday, continuing what has been a breakout last three months for the 24-year-old. Since the turn of the New Year, LaCombe is tied for eighth among all NHL defensemen in scoring, alongside a pair of Norris Trophy winners in Adam Fox and Quinn Hughes, while his 21 even-strength points are good for fifth during that span.

Up front, Carlsson has earned seven points in his last three games and Sunday reached the 20-goal and 40-point marks for the first time in his young NHL career. Carlsson became the youngest Duck ever to score 20 goals in a season, with 11 of those goals coming over the last month and change since representing Team Sweden at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

The Ducks and that young core now turn their attention to a San Jose squad with similar plans, a rebuilding team intent on ushering more of its young talent to the NHL level. At the center of the rebuild though is the Sharks' dynamic offensive duo of Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith. Celebrini, the first overall pick in last summer's NHL Draft, missed both of Anaheim and San Jose's early-season meetings while recovering from an injury sustained his NHL debut. The 18-year-old has since enjoyed a dynamite rookie season though, ranking second among all first-year points in goals, and third in points and assists.

Anaheim claimed victories in each of those two meetings without Celebrini, a season-opening 2-0 shutout and a 3-1 win at Honda Center two weeks later.

The young Sharks, currently sitting at a league-worst 20-44-9 (49 points) and officially eliminated from playoff contention, tonight look to bounce back from a tough weekend that saw 6-1 and 8-1 losses to the Rangers and Kings.

“I think a little bit of it is our D-core has changed quite a bit, so there’s some miscommunication with some areas of our game because our team has changed a lot," Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky told NHL.com's Dan Greenspan after the loss in LA. "And that’s something that I got to do a better job of, getting our guys on the same page and how we need to be more connected in all three zones.”

Anaheim has captured the season series with San Jose in each of the last three years, but tonight looks for the club's first-ever season sweep of its Northern California rival.