still lost, 5-4<\/a>, having given up the game\u2019s first goal and repeatedly shot themselves in the foot.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s just the little details in the game,\u201d said Cutter Gauthier, who had a goal and a primary assist. \u201cWe do a great job every single night of generating offense and getting opportunities to score goals, [but] it\u2019s really hard to score five or six goals every single game in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troy Terry, who led the way with two goals and a primary assist in a losing effort, also pointed to mental lapses, blown coverages and poor puck management. The Ducks, who had long been jockeying around the top of the Pacific Division, slipped into third place behind not only the Vegas Golden Knights, but also the Edmonton Oilers, who leapfrogged both franchises into first place.<\/p>\n
While the Ducks have dropped seven of their past nine decisions, Edmonton is on a roll that has seen the Oilers post the second-best points total, the most goals per game and the league\u2019s best power play (44.2%) by a wide margin since Dec. 4. Though Vegas has struggled of late, losing five of six, lower in the table, the Calgary Flames have won eight of their past 11 contests.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone says you take it day by day, but the reality is that it\u2019s really close. We\u2019ve got to start winning, because the teams behind us are winning,\u201d Terry said. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked hard to put ourselves in this position, but we\u2019re not even halfway [through the season]. There\u2019s a long stretch of hockey coming and we\u2019ve got to make sure we\u2019re managing these games and getting points.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ducks have as many regulation losses (14) when giving up the first goal as they have games in which they have scored first. Their 12-2-0 mark when opening the scoring is decidedly stronger than their 9-14-2 clip when ceding the first tally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t scored first, often, all year. The first one usually can be the biggest factor in a game,\u201d Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it stops us from competing and doing what we need to do to get back in the game, [though] obviously, it would be nice to be playing from ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quenneville coached against Tampa Bay during the early part of the Bolts\u2019 ascent under bench boss Jon Cooper. Quenneville\u2019s Chicago Blackhawks beat the Ducks in the 2015 Western Conference finals and then vanquished Cooper\u2019s Lightning for their third Stanley Cup title in six years.<\/p>\n
Since then, Tampa has won the Cup twice and taken the Eastern Conference title three more times under Cooper, though it hasn\u2019t been out of the first round since its 2022 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in the Final.<\/p>\n
Presently, the Bolts are on a four-game winning streak across which they\u2019ve scored 19 goals, both blowing a 3-0 lead only to win a shootout and surmounting a 3-0 deficit in the process. Nikita Kucherov\u2019s next point will make him the seventh player this season to cross the 50-point threshold, and he has six points in his past three appearances.<\/p>\n
LIGHTNING AT DUCKS<\/p>\n
When: Wednesday, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
Where: Honda Center<\/p>\n
TV: Victory+, KCOP (Ch. 13)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ducks will ring in the new year against the surging Tampa Bay Lightning, and as the calendar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,824,165,164,404,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-116146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-ducks","10":"tag-anaheim-headlines","11":"tag-anaheim-news","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}