WINNIPEG — Don’t get the Anaheim Ducks wrong. All the comebacks they’ve had, all their thrill-a-minute action is intoxicating. Perhaps a little too much at times.
During a nine-game homestand that contained everything that has made the Ducks one of the most exciting teams in the league to watch, Chris Kreider mused about their “kind of chaotic, kind of crazy” nature.
Just how does the feeling that you’re never out of a game manifest within a team?
“It’s hard to put your finger on, but at the end of the day, I just think it’s a group that gets excited to be in those positions where they can go north, generate offense,” Kreider said. “Just a lot of young talent in the room. A lot of guys have game-breaking skill. (They) do stuff that, honestly, I’ve never seen before. At any point, those guys can break out and can score goals.
“I think it might just be a result of that. A group that really wants to win hockey games.”
The Ducks’ 15 wins in their last 19 contests prove they do indeed love that feeling at the end of games. But regularly spotting opponents a couple of goals isn’t sustainable, especially when there is now a Pacific Division to be won and a playoff run to start dreaming about. Besides, their listless loss at home Sunday to the St. Louis Blues shows that sometimes the energy just isn’t there to mount a comeback.
It made Tuesday’s 4-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets to begin a four-game Canadian trip feel like much more than a simple bounce-back performance. The Ducks played the kind of tight, detailed game that can win in the playoffs, and that is something this team hasn’t shown often in this otherwise bubbly season.
The Jets are far from last season’s Presidents’ Trophy outfit. They’re unlikely to make the playoffs, but they aren’t devoid of talent. But Tuesday night it was Anaheim, which hasn’t minded engaging in trade-chance track meets, putting on a skating and defending clinic.
Through 60 minutes that left a Canada Life Centre crowd ornery, the Ducks kept the home team to two shots on goal in the first period, seven shots after two and 13 shots for the game. The excitement paled in comparison to many of Anaheim’s 35 other victories. And that was just fine with the Ducks.
“The other ones are a bit stressful on everyone,” said center Ryan Poehling, crediting his team’s depth for pressuring and wearing down the Jets. “We just played a complete game. Didn’t give them much defensively, but still created just as much offensively. Just playing behind them. It’s definitely the standard.”
Poehling’s intended deflection of Alex Killorn’s long-distance slapper came in between Tim Washe’s rebound goal and Killorn’s own wrister past Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck in a three-goal outburst over a 1:44 span of the second period. That was all the Ducks needed because of how they played, a direct reversal of their disappointing loss to the Blues.
Case in point: On Killorn’s goal, it was Poehling’s hustle that forced a Jets turnover at the Winnipeg blue line and created the scoring chance. The Ducks won races and puck battles all night.
“There’s so many things that happen in a game, and there’s only so much you can control,” Killorn said. “We weren’t happy with last game. We all thought as a group we should have a better start. And I think that has been one of our most complete games.
“You look at three periods. A lot of games we’ve been down, and we’ve had to come back. We were down (a goal) here, but for the majority of the game we were up, and we kind of played the right way. It was a great game for our team.”
As Ducks coach Joel Quenneville put it, “I liked how we learned a good lesson.” His team won’t be this stingy every night. But what the effort did was provide a template to follow. That they can be a team that defends diligently and does not solely rely on its skill or capacity to outscore opponents.
After all, the Ducks came into Tuesday night with a minus-10 goal differential as the leader in the Pacific. It’s still negative, but they head to Toronto with a three-point edge over the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights.
“Tonight reminds me how you’re going to have to play to be successful if you want to win,” Quenneville said. “To get in the playoffs and to win in the playoffs. That’s something we can look back to.”
Ducks forward Tim Washe is congratulated by his teammates after his goal. (Terrence Lee / Imagn Images)
Jackson LaCombe’s empty-net goal salted away one of Anaheim’s finest performances. The Jets were throttled. A Bronx cheer broke out when Winnipeg managed to put three shots on net midway through the third. Then came a “shoot the puck” chant from the Jets faithful. One fed-up fan took it a step further and yelled, “Shoot the f—king puck!”
It had to be music to Quenneville’s ears. And keeping the Jets’ prolific trio of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi without a single shot on goal had to be satisfying.
“Especially when you look at they have some really talented players that were there that have been scoring a lot,” Killorn said. “I think we did a good job keeping those guys off the scoreboard. We didn’t make any stupid turnovers. They’re going to get chances. It’s going to happen. But I thought we eliminated them as much as we could.”
Another thing the Ducks found that can be called upon as messaging in their push for a surprising, even shocking division title: They can win games without their young offensive stars leading the way. Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and Beckett Sennecke didn’t have a point against Winnipeg. On this night, it was the role players who grabbed the headlines.
“It’s important coming down the stretch where these games, they’re so mangled up and you got to be able to roll four lines and kind of give everyone that energy,” Poehling said. “Some nights, they’re not going to be there for us. I thought they played great tonight, just didn’t get on the scoresheet. But you know it’s nice to have other guys step in and do the same thing.”
No late heroics were necessary. No highlight-reel plays that lit up social media. No wild swings in momentum. Just a dominant, workmanlike victory. The Ducks found a new way to win Tuesday — the kind that can make them a threat in the postseason.
“I thought it was very businesslike going into today’s game,” Quenneville said. “And that’s the way we’d like it to be going forward.”