The Anaheim Ducks are rolling as they come into Calgary looking to build on their six-game winning streak against the struggling Flames on Sunday.
Anaheim, coming off a solid 4-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken, has claimed the first two outings of a five-game road swing that now goes through Western Canada.
It has been quite the turnaround after the Ducks struggled through a nine-game losing skid.
“It’s been fun this last week, week and a half or so, playing hockey,” said forward Cutter Gauthier, who collected one goal and one assist in Seattle. “(Coach Joel Quenneville) set the standard that we want to rely on our defense and play a solid, tight game and tight checking, and I think, so far, we’ve done a great job of that.”
The Ducks sit third in the Pacific Division and are riding a whale of a roller coaster after several seasons as bottom-feeders. They are gunning for a second run of seven consecutive wins during the campaign and appear to be finding what it takes to win consistently.
Even though Anaheim is loaded with young talent — although losing forward Leo Carlsson to injury has impacted the attack — the club has turned the corner by improving at the other end of the rink.
“We had a different look to us at the beginning of the year, where we could score goals, it looked like, at a higher rate than anybody would have thought, including us,” Quenneville said. “I think we got more prepared and play without the puck, and that commitment is noticeable, and the results speak for themselves.”
Calgary is on a much different track. Thanks to a 3-1 home loss to the Washington Capitals on Friday, the Flames are winless in three games and on a 3-7-1 slide.
The frustration is palpable, especially after the way Calgary dominated the Capitals in the first period, but the Flames were completely overrun the rest of the way. The Flames needed more than 16 minutes to register a shot on goal in the second period and were outshot 29-10 in the final two frames.
“That’s 100% on us,” winger Connor Zary said. “Obviously, they’re going to respond to how we played in the first, but we’ve got to stick with it and play our game and not get away from it.
“I don’t think it’s anything in the locker room,” he added. “I just think, collectively, we’ve got to stick with it and stay together as a group and kind of move on from that.”
Calgary has been outshot in nine consecutive games, but that is only one miserable trend. The Flames, who have garnered only one win in their last six home games (1-4-1), have been held to one goal in three consecutive games and have been held to one or fewer goals in 17 of 51 games, most in the NHL.
As well as the Flames are defending (they are among the top third in goals against and among the leaders in penalty kill), their offensive woes are destroying their faint playoff hopes, even with more than one-third of the season remaining.
“When you’re not having success, sometimes you have the tendency to almost hope things are going to happen instead of making them happen,” coach Ryan Huska said. “Then, a little bit of momentum shifts to begin that period, and you have to shift it right back right away. I don’t think we did a very good job of that.”
–Field Level Media
