The Anaheim Ducks were hoping an eight-game homestand would provide the jumpstart they needed to move up the Western Conference playoff standings.
However, heading into a Sunday night game with the red-hot Edmonton Oilers, the Ducks have won just one of the first four games of the home sequence.
The lone win was impressive, a 5-2 shellacking of the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday. The Ducks jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first 12:18 and withstood a two-goal third period from the visitors.
However, Anaheim couldn’t build any momentum from that result. The Ducks came out flat and wasted a strong 30-save performance by John Gibson in a 2-0 loss to the Arizona Coyotes on Friday, falling to 6-13-0 at home this season.
Afterward, Anaheim coach Greg Cronin didn’t mince words.
“It was sloppy everywhere,” he said. “To me, it looked like (Arizona) came out to win a hockey game and we came out to play a hockey game.
“They just outworked us. Every zone, they outworked us. You can package this game any way you want. At the end of the day, they outworked us.”
Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler said the frustrating part was wasting another strong performance by Gibson, who also made 30 saves in the win over the Golden Knights two nights earlier.
“We win as a team and we lose as a team,” Fowler said. “Gibby did his part tonight, and as players, we didn’t do ours. We’ll just have to keep working, figure out some ways to score some more goals and give our goalie some more support.”
Next up is Connor McDavid and the Oilers. Edmonton is riding a four-game winning streak after rallying for a 3-2 shootout victory up the freeway against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night.
The Oilers, who are 12-3-0 over their last 15 games, fell behind 2-0 in the first period while getting outshot 11-2. But McDavid, playing in his 600th NHL game, banked in a sharp-angle shot off the back of Kings goalie Cam Talbot to cut it to 2-1 on a second-period power play, then set up Leon Draisaitl for the tying goal near the end of the period.
The contest eventually went to a shootout, where Derek Ryan won it in the fourth round with a wrist shot inside the right post.
“Every time we’re in this building, it feels like the exact same game,” McDavid said. “Just rinse and repeat. It’s the same game over and over again, and we know that. It’s a grind.
“They’re a great team. I thought we did a great job of hanging in there. Obviously, we didn’t like our first period, and we just talked about hanging in the game and sticking around, and I thought we did that all night.”
The Oilers, who sputtered badly at the start of the season with a 2-9-1 record, now find themselves within five points of a Western Conference wild-card spot. Edmonton is 14-6-0 since Kris Knoblauch took over coaching duties for Jay Woodcroft.
“It was a tough start. No question about that,” McDavid said. “But we felt like our game was getting there, we felt it was right at the cusp there when we made the coaching change. Obviously, we’ve been able to play some good hockey and string some wins together.”
–Field Level Media
