ANAHEIM — The fire alarm is ringing loudly at Honda Center.
It blared as the Ducks were blanked on Tuesday night, 5-0, by a Nashville Predators team that lost in a shootout less than 24 hours earlier, condemning the Ducks to their sixth consecutive defeat.
Five of those flops have come in regulation, and there are only four games left in the regular season.
Where before the Ducks had only to concern themselves with their own play – which has become quite a concern – they now have to watch the scoreboard. They had a five-point lead in the Pacific Division when they began to sink, but now might have to sweat the wild-card race.
The view wasn’t pretty on Tuesday, when the Edmonton Oilers picked up a point with an overtime loss to the Utah Mammoth and the Vegas Golden Knights moved to 4-0-0 under new coach John Tortorella via a 2-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.
Edmonton (first in the Pacific), Vegas (a points tie for first in the Pacific) and Utah (the first wild-card in the Western Conference) possess identical 88-point totals, while the Ducks are stuck on 87. That’s just four more than the Kings, who dangle near the bottom of the league in both wins and regulation wins but nevertheless sit one point back of Nashville (84) for the second wild card with a game in hand on the Predators.
“It’s not the optimal time to be losing games, obviously, in the season. We put ourselves in a pretty good spot and we’re kind of throwing it away a little bit here at the end,” veteran forward Alex Killorn said. “But there’s still plenty of games left to get those points back.”
Lukáš Dostál stopped 20 shots for the hosts.
Erik Haula, Filip Forsberg, Brady Skjei, Zachary L’Heureux and Fedor Svechkov each scored for Nashville, with Haula adding an assist. Ryan O’Reilly and Joakim Kimmell chipped in two helpers apiece. Backup Justus Annunen recorded his first shutout in more than two years behind 43 saves.
After digging themselves a three-goal hole over the course of the second period, the Ducks greased up the sides when Jeffrey Viel took two penalties with 15 seconds left to roll 3:45 of short-handed time into the final 20 minutes.
Though they killed both penalties, they gave up the period’s only two goals, with 10:09 to play and 4:53 remaining.
L’Heureux finished a 4-on-2 opportunity that resulted from three Ducks colliding in front of the Nashville net. Haula occupied the paint and set a screen for L’Heureux to fire through.
The Predators slathered on a fifth goal just after their power play expired, Ryan Ufko’s stretch pass sprung Tyson Jost. He dipped behind the net and found Svechkov in front for a redirect.
This was Nashville’s first shutout of the season, and the sixth instance in which the Ducks had been bageled.
“They’re a desperate team right now and we’re coming on a back-to-back here. They took it to us a little bit early. We weren’t quite up to speed; they’re a really fast team,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “We found the commitment and the urgency in the second and third, and we defended really well. We had really good sticks and we tried to frustrate them a little bit.”
The Ducks were out-shooting Nashville 20-9 in a scoreless game, but the visitors’ 10th shot was the match’s first goal with its midway mark looming. They scored again, at 11:26, and again, with a minute left in the period.
Kimmell gained the Ducks’ zone, faking a slap shot and then curling back toward the blue line to find a trailing Haula. He hammered a shot from between the circles at 7:07.
“In a lot of those games where we came back, we had really bad starts. It seems to be the opposite now,” Killorn said. “We start games really well and then when something goes wrong, we don’t rebound like we used to.”
The Ducks went 0 for 2 on the power play in the first period, and had to kill their first penalty 10:01 into the second. Their special-teams woes persisted.
A slow but decisive build on the Nashville man advantage got the puck back to Forsberg above the right circle. He adjusted his angle and rifled home his 38th goal through an O’Reilly screen.
During their slump, the Ducks have killed just 12 of 18 penalties (they also gave up a goal eight seconds after a power play on Tuesday) and have cashed in only two of 24 power plays.
“We didn’t get any offense and our team game didn’t pick up any momentum off it as well, so it kind of stymied us,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Our penalty kill, on certain nights, it’s been decent.”
Having already ceded an even-strength tally and a man-advantage marker, the Ducks collected the entire set of goals against by allowing one shorthanded.
Jackson LaCombe activated, only to have the puck stolen by O’Reilly. He got the puck ahead to Nick Perbix, who found himself on a 2-on-0 break with his defense partner, Skjei, who finished from between the hashmarks.
The Ducks square off with Macklin Celebrini and the San Jose Sharks on Thursday, a group that has won five of six to prolong its postseason hopes.