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Cutter Gauthier’s 1st NHL goal helps Ducks rally past Red Wings

November 16, 2024

ANAHEIM — The Ducks conjured memories of last season’s wagon-circling magic as they rallied from a two-goal deficit to beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-4, on Friday night at Honda Center.

It was the Ducks’ highest offensive output of the season and their first comeback win in a game when they trailed by multiple goals. Last year, they were the first team in NHL history to record six come-from-behind wins in the first 15 contests of the campaign.

Rookie Cutter Gauthier’s first career goal factored significantly into this comeback.

“We have a highly skilled young team who can make plays like that night in and night out. I think it’s just the confidence to do it consistently, just having faith in your skill,” Gauthier said. “As we build more and more confidence through games like these, the more we’re going to grow and the better we’ll be moving forward.”

Gauthier’s goal had storybook qualities as he spent much of his youth in Michigan playing for Honey Baked Hockey and it was set up by two fellow Boston College alumni, Drew Helleson and Brian Dumoulin.

“It was a dream come true, against my hometown team, Detroit, it was a surreal moment, and I’m just so pumped,” Gauthier said.

“B.C. blood, once an Eagle, always an Eagle,” he added when the B.C. connection was called to his attention.

Olen Zellweger scored a goal and picked up the primary assists on tallies by Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry. Leo Carlsson and Dumoulin each chipped in two assists, as did Helleson in his first NHL game since 2022-23. Gauthier, Ross Johnston and Ryan Strome joined Terry as third-period scorers while John Gibson moved to 2-0-0 this season by making 21 saves.

Marco Kasper also scored his first NHL goal and assisted on Jonatan Berggren’s goal. Mason Raymond and Alex DeBrincat each matched Kasper’s output with a goal and an assist. Moritz Seider had two helpers and Alex Lyon stopped 23 of 28 shots in defeat.

DeBrincat made the finish more compelling by scoring Detroit’s third power-play goal of the night with 3:44 to play, only to see Strome ice the game with 24 seconds showing on the clock.

The hosts had seized control with two goals in a 38-second spurt between the 11:09 and 11:47 marks of the third period.

Johnston finished a rush by tipping in Jansen Harkins’ shot for his first goal and what stood as the game-winner.

That came on the heels of the first goal of Gauthier’s career off a shot he blasted to the far side following a smooth blue line-to-blue line feed from Helleson.

“Everyone was just super excited for [Gauthier],” Zellweger said. “It was a huge goal for him, and for the team, too, it was really timely.”

Less than four minutes into the third period, the Ducks made it a new game at 3-3 while simultaneously tying the power-play goal tally, 2-2. Zellweger dished to Terry atop the left faceoff circle, where he loaded the puck into a shooting position but sold a pass by redirecting his gaze before punishing Lyon for moving off his angle by scoring his sixth goal of the season.

The Ducks had pulled within a goal and nearly came up with a second-period equalizer after they scored on the power play with 2:16 left before drawing another penalty 28 seconds later.

They gained new life with a man-advantage goal by Zegras set up by the brilliance of Zellweger. He carried the puck from behind his own net to the offensive blue line, where he executed a give-and-go play with Alex Killorn before finding the trailing Zegras, who drove the net to snap the puck past Lyon. It was the second goal of the season for Zegras, who scored an empty-netter in the season opener on Oct. 12.

“When we don’t get any chances on the power play, the crowd boos us, it gets deflating and guys are frustrated on the bench,” Coach Greg Cronin said. “It worked the other way in the second, we were getting chances and that lifted us offensively.”

Detroit threatened to pull away just 65 seconds into the middle frame off a transition sequence that was both keyed and finished by Raymond.

He knocked the puck off Pavel Mintykuov’s stick in the defensive zone, where it was collected by DeBrincat. His pass off the right-wing wall sprung Raymond for a short-side shot from the right dot. He nearly scored a second goal, only to be denied when the puck stood on the handle of Gibson’s stick as if it were a spatula.

Though the Ducks struck first, Detroit’s two power-play goals gave them a 2-1 lead at the first intermission.

Late in the frame, Helleson and Radko Gudas took penalties three seconds apart from each other. With 44 seconds left in the period, Vladimir Tarasenko’s seam pass across the bottoms of both circles found Berggren for a sharp-angle one-timer and a five-on-three goal.

After trailing early, Kasper nearly knotted the score when Strome’s saucer pass out of the corner of the defensive zone almost became the primary assist on a Detroit goal. Gibson gloved Kasper’s point-blank bid but couldn’t come up with a save on his perfectly placed wrister from the left hash mark at 7:59.

The Ducks got the crowd going a mere 72 seconds into the match. Strome won an offensive zone faceoff before Carlsson found Jackson LaCombe, whose D-to-D pass set up Zellweger’s one-timer through traffic, his third goal of 2024-25.

Cronin said his club was disheartened by the five-on-three goal it gave up, when his eye in the sky, assistant coach Tim Army, burst forth with some reinforcement for the team’s performance and persistence alike.

“He was really adamant about saying, ‘Hey, we had a heck of a period,’ and he shared that with the players,” Cronin said. “We were getting pucks deep, we were hunting pucks down and we were getting quality chances.”

Orange County Register

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Cutter Gauthier’s 1st NHL goal helps Ducks rally past Red Wings

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