ANAHEIM, Calif. – It looked like welcoming in the league’s last-place team on a 10-game winless streak was the best way to fire up some home cooking and start a winning streak for the Anaheim Ducks.
Anaheim had just snapped a five-game losing skid as they returned from the East Coast for a three-game homestand, and while not the cleanest affair, the Ducks held a three-goal lead twice, including a 5-2 advantage with 12 minutes to play.
However, easy, breezy turned dark and stormy quickly, as a simple Ducks victory became inexcusable defeat in a flash.
Vancouver scored with the goalie pulled twice 49 seconds apart, and the Canucks scored on a two-man advantage with 10 seconds left in overtime to complete the Ducks collapse, 6-5, on Tuesday at Honda Center.
“That can’t happen,” Mikael Granlund said. “Sometimes these things happen, but it’s unacceptable. We have to do a better job to close out these games.”
Anaheim (5-6-1, 11 points) has now lost six of its last seven games and have started just 1-3-1 at home. Vancouver has won nine of its last 10 games at Honda Center and four of its last five overall against the Ducks.
“That’s what happens in this league if you don’t finish the game the right way,” Jackson LaCombe said. “It’s unacceptable. We can’t let up like that at all. You can’t keep taking penalties and make those mistakes.”
Vancouver’s only power play goal was the overtime winner, but the Canucks earned seven man advantages in the game to just two for the Ducks. In overtime, Beckett Sennecke lifted an untimely high stick on the forecheck, and Alex Killorn was called for goaltender interference on a a shorthanded break, where he was seemingly pushed into the Vancouver netminder.
“They had 10 minutes of power play. We had less than a minute,” Joel Quenneville said. “That had something to do with it… That (Killorn penalty) something we talked about. I didn’t like the last call.”
Even through the power play disparity, Anaheim had grinded out 4-1 and 5-2 leads, with the Vancouver goals at the time only coming off odd bounces off Ducks players around the net.
A.J. Greer posted his first two goal game since Jan. 12 with Florida, and Jackson LaCombe registered three assists. Greer, Jeff Malott and Beckett Sennecke on the power play all scored on tip-ins and deflections to push the Ducks’ league-high in those goals to 11. Leo Carlsson also scored off a rebound.
However, the tide turned for Vancouver 30 seconds after Greer’s second goal, as the Canucks rushed back and Jamie Oleksiak slapped an unscreened one-timer straight through Lukáš Dostál’s five hole, 5-3.
Over the final 12 minutes of regulation, Vancouver outshot the Ducks 8-2, and two lightning bolts from Jonathan Lekkerimäki with under three minutes remaining pulled the Canucks even.
The first came courtesy of two Ducks miscues. First, Sam Colangelo iced the puck shooting for the empty net from the Ducks’ own zone instead of skating out to center ice first. Second, on the ensuing shift, Greer did not clear and backhanded a puck off the boards to the middle of the ice straight to Lekkerimäki.
The Canucks scoring Swede then fired around an unmarked Vancouver screen in front to get back within one, 5-4.
“Benefit of giving them some life with some plays we make with possession,” Quenneville said. “All of the sudden they go the other way or it’s in our net. We carelessly make plays senselessly. I think that’s where we got to be smarter. We gotta play smarter as a team.”
On the ensuing Canucks possession, Dostál could not cover a puck in a play at the net, and Vancouver fished it out and went around the horn. Lekkerimäki fired around another unmarked Canucks screen through Ducks defending traffic to tie the game, 5-5, with 1:57 remaining.
“We just sat back and let them come,” Jackson LaCombe said. “That’s not our identity and the way we want to play. We can’t do that.”
Lukáš Dostál stopped 25 of 33 shots in his ninth start in 12 games for Anaheim. Leevi Merilainen made 18 saves for the Canucks.
Into the overtime period, there were just four shots between the two sides in the extra session, and they were all from Vancouver, including two on the power play.
Filip Hronek finished the one-time blast on the five-on-three power play to secure the win, 6-5.
“That was a terrible loss,” Quenneville said.
Anaheim continues this three-game homestand against Buffalo on Thursday before hosting Ottawa on Sunday and facing the Canucks back up in Vancouver next Tuesday to open a three-game Western Canada road trip.
Line-Up Continuity
This was the first game all season long that Anaheim did not sub in a previously scratched player into the next line-up, due to coach’s decision or injury. With just two defensemen switching pairs, this was Anaheim’s most continuous game-to-game line-up in the last seven games.
“I have to admit,” Joel Quenneville said at morning skate on Tuesday, “we have been fluctuating with the lines in a lot of different looks, different familiarity and different thought processes. Just looking for some continuity. When you don’t win, you flip things around until you find the right recipe.”
There might be another round of changes come Thursday.
Game Notes
- Jackson LaCombe picked up an assist for the fourth straight game and has points in 10 of 12 games this season.
- Beckett Sennecke is the fourth fastest player to 30 career goals in Ducks history with his 94 games sitting behind Paul Kariya (63 games), Bobby Ryan (81 games) and Dustin Penner (92 games). Sennecke leads the team in goals (7) and minor penalties (10).
- Leo Carlsson scored his 65th career goal, which gives him the second-most goals by a Swedish player before age 22 in NHL history. Only Maple Leafs legend Mats Sundin (83 goals) had more.
- Roger McQueen played just 6:20 in his seventh career NHL game. McQueen played just two shifts in the second period and only one shift in the third period.