The Ducks (21-17-3) hit the road for the first of four games with a trip to Washington to take on the Capitals (21-15-6).
Puck drop is set for 4 p.m. PT and will air on Victory+ and KCOP-13.
Anaheim dropped its fifth game in a row on Friday, falling to the Wild, 5-2. The two goals belonged to Beckett Sennecke and Troy Terry.
“Tonight wasn’t very good,” head coach Joel Quenneville said. “Our beginning was good. They score, we kinda lose our way, we give up a couple there. Then it looked like we were starting to trend back in the game. Our start of the second period wasn’t very good, but I didn’t mind our first period, and then the third, they had the puck a lot more than us.”
Sennecke’s goal was his 13th of the season, marking the most for the teenage player in Ducks franchise history. His 13 scores also leads all NHL rookies.
Despite the slump, Troy Terry believes this team can turn things around if they go back to centering themselves given the fact that the NHL season is a marathon, not a sprint.
“Just mentally realizing that those slumps are going to happen, you try to limit the slumps, and just realizing not to ride the high of scoring three games in a row, if you haven’t scored in ten games, things are going to turn back around,” Terry said. “Trying to stay even keel, keep confidence up, because it’s a long season and it goes up and down.”
Heading into Monday’s game, the team still sits at third in the Pacific Division, just one point behind Vegas and Edmonton.
Radko Gudas, who returned to the lineup against Minnesota, said he’s feeling good and is looking forward to embarking on this next phase of the season as there’s so much hockey left to be played.
“Today’s a big day for us,” he said. “We want to start the second half on a good note and we’re ready to get the two points here.”
The Caps have also hit a big of a snag dropping their last two games, the most recent loss coming in shootouts to the Blackhawks. While Tom Wilson paces the club with 42 points, he will not play tonight due to a lower-body injury he sustained against Chicago.
This is the second of two regular season meetings between the two clubs as they played each other exactly one month ago with Anaheim besting Washington in a 4-3 shootout victory.
