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Surging Oilers hand Ducks their 9th straight loss

April 6, 2023

ANAHEIM –– Already tumbling through the longest losing streak of a season to forget, the Ducks faced down the team that had beaten them most handily during this funk, the Edmonton Oilers, and lost again, 3-1, on Wednesday night at Honda Center.

That score accurately reflected a far more competitive game than their 6-0 defeat at Edmonton’s hands just four days earlier.

The victories for the Ducks might have been moral, but they were by no means insignificant: they prevented the NHL’s two top scorers (Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl) from scoring until McDavid’s late empty-net assist, they afforded Edmonton’s top-ranked power play just one fruitless opportunity and they got back a pair of key players. Winger Troy Terry played for the first time since March 25 and forward Adam Henrique returned to action after sustaining a knee injury on Feb. 21.

“Honestly, I thought it was a good hockey game. At this point in the season, because we’ve lost so much, it’s hard to not be upset when we lose and there’s definitely things we can do better,” Terry said. “But, as a whole, we shut down probably the two best players in the world and we played a good game that probably could have went either way.”

Terry – who had missed the team’s recent four-game trip with his wife expecting the couple’s first child – scored for the Ducks. He won’t travel to Arizona for Saturday’s game because of the pregnancy, the same position Henrique and his wife were in a few short months ago. Lukas Dostal stopped 30 of 32 shots he faced.

“Troy was excellent. He had the puck on his stick all night. I think he ended up with six shots on net and even more attempts,” said Ducks coach Dallas Eakins, who also credited Dostal’s key saves with helping quiet the Oilers’ weapons of mass destruction.

Klim Kostin scored the first Edmonton goal and assisted on the second by fellow towering forward Nick Bjugstad. Forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins recorded his 100th point of the year setting up Zach Hyman’s empty-netter. Former Kings goalie Jack Campbell made 27 saves in a calm, collected effort.

While the Ducks have had competition aboard the fail boat – Arizona has lost eight straight and Chicago has kicked its losing ways into high gear by posting the worst record since the trade deadline – there’s little doubt about who the hottest team in the NHL has been since the swaps stopped. Edmonton has gone 15-2-1 since March 1, the Oilers debut of newly acquired defenseman Mattias Ekholm, posting a points percentage of .861. That mark is 83 percentage points higher than any other team in the league. Meanwhile, the Ducks have four games remaining, which could put them past their franchise-worst streak of 11 winless games last season.

Approaching the five-minute mark of the third period, the Ducks halved their deficit. Henrique stole the puck near the blue line, flipping it to defenseman Simon Benoit. He kicked the puck ahead to Terry in the left circle before occupying the stick and then the body of defenseman Brett Kulak. The drive by Benoit opened up room in the low slot for Terry to rip home his 22nd goal of 2022-23, which tied him with center Trevor Zegras for the team lead.

“(Mason MacTavish) made a good read trying to cover McDavid on the far side, which maybe held them a little longer than they wanted, we were just able to turn it over,” Henrique said. “(Benoit) made a good play jumping into the rush trying to take advantage and getting it to Troy, who had a lot of opportunities tonight and finally got one.”

The Ducks managed to get Dostal pulled from his cage but with 1:42 to play the Oilers turned an intercepted pass into an empty-net goal, with all three members of their top line touching the puck before Hyman deposited it into the net.

They nearly made it through half the match without giving up a goal, but with 10:24 left in the second period Edmonton opened the scoring. Kostin and linemate Mattias Janmark dovetailed into the slot before splitting abruptly, at which point Janmark swept the puck to Kostin for a redirection goal, his 11th and first since March 1, as he fell to the ice.

Kostin would play the role of playmaker 3:10 later. A feeble clearing attempt found Kostin’s stick below the goal line, allowing him to thread a pass through traffic to Bjugstad for his 17th goal of the campaign. Since his acquisition via trade from Arizona on March 2, Bjugstad has four goals and six points.

The Ducks could live with Edmonton’s supporting cast beating them, rather than a supercharged power play and dynamic scoring duo that Terry said the Ducks knew they would have to contain to have any chance of prevailing. Draisaitl poured in a hat trick against the Ducks on Saturday, but he saw his 13-game point streak, which encompassed 27 points, snapped Wednesday.

“We kept our pace high. We tried to stay in their face. Those guys find time and space all over, it’s hard, but our guys did a good job,” Henrique said.

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The Ducks also lost a role player of their own as they played much of the match sans winger Brock McGinn, who exited the game with an upper-body injury and did not return.

With four games left to play, the playoffs are a fantasy and the only records that could be set would be ignominious ones. So what do the Ducks hope to accomplish as the finish line nears?

“We’ve done an excellent job of negativity out of our room,” Eakins said. “We want to keep our work ethic high, that has not only been evident in the game but in practice too. If we can do that and really invest in each other and look after each other, I think it’d be a good way to end the season.”

NOTES

The loss guaranteed the Ducks will finish with the fewest points in a full 82-game season in franchise history. The previous low was 65 points in 1997-98, which was the fourth-worst record in the league that season. … This is the third straight season the Ducks have had a winless streak of at least nine games. … Nugent-Hopkins became the third Edmonton skater to reach 100 points this season, joining McDavid and Draisaitl. The last time a team had three or more players with at least 100 points was Pittsburgh in 1995-96 with Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Ron Francis. … McDavid’s assist moved him within two points of 150.

Orange County Register

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Surging Oilers hand Ducks their 9th straight loss

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