The Anaheim Ducks ended an eight-game losing streak against Colorado on Saturday night, but the Avalanche quickly have a chance to get even.
Anaheim’s 4-3 shootout win at home stopped a challenging slide, and it will try to make it two in a row against Colorado on Tuesday night in Denver.
The Ducks rallied from down two goals Saturday night to pull out the win, with rookie Leo Carlsson getting the only score in the shootout.
The Avalanche lost more than a game that night. Star defenseman Cale Makar left the game with 2:57 left in regulation and didn’t return, and he was out for Colorado’s 4-1 loss at Los Angeles on Sunday night, a game that started less than 20 hours after the Ducks’ win.
Makar, the team’s leading scorer with 34 points (seven goals, 27 assists), missed his first game of the season with a lower-body injury. Coach Jared Bednar only said Makar “was dealing with something” after Sunday’s loss.
The Avalanche did not practice on Monday, and there was no update on his status for Tuesday night. Rookie Sam Malinski took Makar’s place in the lineup and logged 18:09 of ice time against the Kings.
Although Colorado has lost three in a row, it earned a point in the first two to salvage something from the road trip. The Avalanche had won seven of eight before heading to Arizona on Thursday night, and the adversity might help them refocus like they did when they were shut out three times in four games earlier in the season.
“When you go through a little struggle and now you’re not getting results, guys quickly identified that, ‘Hey, we’ve got to be a lot better in a lot of different areas in order to have success,'” Bednar said. “Once you start having the failures, then you get guys really digging in to put more importance on the details of the game, eventually that process leads to good results.”
Anaheim has dealt with plenty of adversity while developing its young corps, which begins with the 18-year-old Carlsson. He had a goal and an assist to go with his shootout winner Saturday, giving the Ducks their first win since Nov. 14.
Anaheim knows there will be growing pains now, but the losing has begun to weigh on the team.
“It grates on you. You can spin it all you want about the process and the measurables that we look at that reflect the quality of your game, but you keep losing, you just feel it,” first-year coach Greg Cronin said after Saturday’s win.
The Ducks may be young, but still have a veteran goaltender in Josh Gibson to help them grow. He was strong Saturday night when he set a franchise record for games played by a goaltender.
He surpassed Jean-Sebastien Giguere — who also played for Colorado — to sit alone atop the list.
Anaheim might be without center Mason McTavish, who left Saturday’s game with an upper-body injury and didn’t return.
–Field Level Media
