Ducks Pull Off A 4-3 Shootout Win

By Michael Walters

The Anaheim Ducks closed out their homestand against the San Jose Sharks. Lukas Dostal was in net against Alexandar Georgiev.

Recap:

Mason McTavish appeared to score in the early moments of this game. He crashed the net and the puck went in, but the officials waived off the goal due to his contact with Georgiev. No penalty was called for goalie interference, but the goal was disallowed.

On the next sequence Trevor Zegras scored. Sam Colangelo one-timed the puck off the face-off and Zegras deflected the puck into the back of the net.

About three minutes later Shakir Mukhamadullin scored on a point shot. The shot beat Dostal low and went in five-hole barely sliding in over the goal line. Dostal would have wanted that one back.

The Ducks went on the power play a few minutes later and Jackson LaCombe scored on a point shot through traffic.

Anaheim got in penalty trouble halfway through the period and San Jose had a two man advantage for 1:15. The Ducks were able to kill off back-to-back penalties.

Radko Gudas took a point shot that was blocked and Sam Colangelo scored on the rebound with about one minute left in the period. The Ducks led 3-1 after the opening period.

There was no scoring in the second period.

The Sharks scored about four minutes into the third period to get within one goal. Marc-Edouard Vlasic beat Dostal high. He was clipped by Collin Graf just before the goal and there was no penalty called. Some of the Ducks went after Graf and the Sharks scored as a result.

San Jose then tied up the game with less than four minutes to go. Alexander Wennberg scored on a one-timer from the right circle off a pass from William Eklund. Bonus hockey would be needed to decide this contest.

In overtime, the Ducks were all over Georgiev, but the game would go to a shootout. McTavish came up with the only goal and the Ducks went on to win 4-3.

Analysis:

The Ducks came out flying in the first period taking a 3-1 lead. In the middle, the Sharks outplayed the Ducks, but there was no scoring. San Jose was able to tie up the game late in regulation to force overtime. In the extra session the Ducks generated several quality chances and nearly won the game. Instead a shootout was needed and McTavish scored the only goal to secure the win for Anaheim.

The way this game started you would have thought the Ducks would have blown out the Sharks. Instead, the Ducks were out played after the first period. They couldn’t get anything going in the second period and were outshot 14-4. There were also a couple of instances in the third period where the Ducks lost focus going after Sharks players. One instance cost the Ducks when Dostal was clipped by Graf. Two players got out of position going after Graf and the Sharks scored. The Ducks were the much better team during the overtime and could have won the game several times. Eventually they pulled out the win during the shootout.

Anaheim won the special teams battle going 1-for-4 with the man advantage. San Jose went 0-for-2 in this chances. There were some interesting lineups that Head Coach Greg Cronin utilized. During the 5-on-3 power play in the third he put Ryan Strome on the ice instead of Zegras. Cronin also put Strome on ice to start the overtime with Terry and Jackson LaCombe. The Vatrano-Strome-Terry line had zero points during the five game homestand. Time to make some lineup changes.

Team Notes/Stats:

LaCombe scored his 14th goal of the season, which is the most since Ducks defenseman since Lubomir Visnovsky had 18 in the 2010-11 season.

McTavish had a career high of 11 shots on goal. He has 10 points (2 G + 8 A) in his last eight games. Is he on your fantasy hockey team? (*Whispers “I have him on my team”.)

Zegras has seven points (3 G + 4 A) in his last six games.

Anaheim is 29-3-4 when scoring three or more goals this season.

The Ducks swept the season series with the Sharks going 3-0-0.

The Ducks are one point from being officially eliminated from the playoffs.

Dostal started in his third straight game. Greg Cronin said after the game that they wanted to give Gibson “one more day”. It sounds like Gibson isn’t 100%, but is still well enough to play backup.

What’s Next?

The Ducks travel to Calgary to play the Flames Thursday at 6:30 PM.

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April 2nd, 2025