Three days after emphatically accomplishing their mission, the Anaheim Ducks will return to the ice Tuesday against the visiting San Jose Sharks to test how much momentum they actually created.
The Ducks were on a four-game losing streak when they turned an aggressive strategy into a 7-4 road victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday. It came after they scored nine total goals in the four prior games.
“I thought the guys played extremely hard for each other (Saturday), and it was really important that we got a win under our belt going home,” Ducks head coach Dallas Eakins said.
Anaheim’s strategy was to get the puck on net and bodies in front of the goal. The plan led to a 6-2 lead after two periods and a 2-0 advantage less than 3 1/2 minutes into the game.
The final piece to the Ducks’ puzzle was to go on the attack. Anaheim’s Nicolas Deslauriers scored a pair of goals, and his big hit less than a minute into the game knocked Canucks defenseman Kyle Burroughs from the contest.
“We wanted to be physical,” said Eakins, whose team was without captain Ryan Getzlaf (back) for the second consecutive game.
The Ducks now return home, where they will play six consecutive games. The stretch comes after a run where they played eight of nine games on the road wrapped around the All-Star break. Anaheim started the nine-game challenge 3-0-1, but ended it 1-3-1.
The Sharks know recent struggles well. They enter on a six-game losing streak (0-3-3) and are 2-6-4 going back to Jan. 13.
After falling to the Canucks in overtime on Thursday, San Jose was humbled 4-1 by the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday.
The Sharks have struggled with slow starts, something that doesn’t bode well if Anaheim wants to set the tone early again Tuesday.
“Just another first period where we’re chasing and we’re down 2-0 or (there are) a couple, I would say soft kinds of goals on us,” San Jose head coach Bob Boughner said after Sunday’s defeat. “That’s not a recipe for success for our team.”
Said San Jose’s Logan Couture: “We’ve got to find a way to score first in games and score more than one, or zero.”
Timo Meier leads the Sharks with 23 goals and 50 points, but he has just two goals and three points over his past six games, with all of those coming against the Canucks on Thursday.
San Jose goalie Adin Hill (lower body) has not played since he took over for a struggling James Reimer in a 7-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Jan. 22. Reimer has gone 1-4-3 over his past eight games.
Four months into the season, it is the first meeting of the season between the Pacific Division rivals. They will have four total meetings before the regular season ends in April.
The Ducks defeated the Sharks in the final three games the teams played against each other last season and did it by a combined 13-2 score. All three games were at San Jose.
–Field Level Media
