Ducks score first, drop sixth straight in 7-4 road loss to Capitals

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – For the first time in five games, the Anaheim Ducks scored first on Monday night. The bit of good fortune did not matter much for the rest of the result, as the same defensive issues plagued the Ducks in the nation’s capital.

The Washington Capitals scored five straight to respond to Anaheim’s opening strike, and despite the Ducks pulling back within one goal with over 10 minutes to play, the hill was just too tall to climb in a 7-4 loss at Capital One Arena.

Anaheim has now lost six in a row and 10 of its last 12 games.

“When things are going this way, it’s really hard to get out of it,” Alex Killorn told the Victory+ broadcast. “You look at the shots, and you feel like we had a pretty good start. When you’re in one of these things, when you’re not winning, it’s hard to get out of.”

The Ducks scored first for just the 15th time in 42 games this season–third-fewest instances in the league–to hold a lead at any point in a game for just the third time in the last 13 games. Anaheim is now 12-3-0 in games when scoring first.

Chris Kreider netted that opening goal, his first tally in 16 games. Justin Sourdif scored three of the next four goals for his first career hat trick, as the Capitals put in five straight strikes.

Anaheim responded with three straight goals from Alex Killorn, Jacob Trouba and Beckett Sennecke, who scored for the third straight game to cut the lead back to one.

Washington hit two empty-netters, including Alex Ovechkin’s second goal of the game and 914th of his career–most in NHL history.

Petr Mrázek made 19 saves through two periods, and Lukáš Dostál came on in relief to stop all three shots he faced in the third period. Charlie Lindgren made 41 saves for the Capitals.

Anaheim's Ryan Strome and Washingtons' Ryan Leonard traded penalty shot misses in the second period.

Anaheim (21-18-3, 45 points) remains one point out of first place in the Pacific Division, as idle Edmonton (20-15-6, 46 points) and Vegas (17-11-12, 46 points) are tied for the top spot. Vegas has two games in hand on the Ducks and Edmonton.

However, wild cards Seattle (18-14-7, 43 points) and Los Angeles (17-15-9, 43 points) can both catch the Ducks with games later Monday night. San Jose (20-17-3, 43 points) is also two points out, but idle tonight.

The Ducks continue their four-games-in-six-nights East Coast road trip against Trevor Zegras and Philadelphia in the second half of the back-to-back on Tuesday.

Kreider Comes Through

In this recent losing skid, the scoring from Ducks top forwards had run dry. Leading points man Leo Carlsson has one point in eight games and no goals in 10 games. Leading goal scorer Cutter Gauthier has one goal in nine games and three goals in 14 games.

Chris Kreider scored just one goal with four points through the entire month of December. Heading into the road trip, the veteran felt his stride would return soon enough.

“Law of averages,” Kreider said last week. “It’s gonna come. I’m gonna score goals. I’m gonna score a lot of goals. Just gonna keep on shooting, keep on putting myself in the right spot. If I consistently scored every game, I’d be making a max deal. I think everyone would.”

Kreider did find that breakthrough on Monday night, putting home an opening one-timer off a sweet feed from Olen Zellweger. It was Kreider’s first goal since Dec. 1, which marked a 15-game goal drought.

“Everyone’s searching for that consistency, but it’s a law of averages,” Kreider said. “If you keep putting yourself in that spot over and over, make sure the rest of your game is tight; eventually, it will come around.”

It seemed like a promising start for Anaheim, but the Ducks failed to ride the early momentum.

Sennecke Strikes Thrice

Of the Ducks’ top-six forward this season, the most consistent is their 19-year-old rookie Beckett Sennecke. His longest drought between goals this season was six games, and he hasn’t gone more than two games without a point in the team’s last 32 games.

Sennecke scored a goal for the third-straight game on Monday, as he fell forward to snipe his 14th of the season and cut the deficit to just one goal midway through the third period. Sennecke also had a brilliant opportunity at the game-tying goal, but Charlie Lindgren lunged across to make one of his 41 stellar saves.

Sennecke regained the rookie goal-scoring lead, pulling out of a tie with Montreal’s Oliver Kapanen. Sennecke is four points and eight assists behind Montreal’s Ivan Demidov in the other rookie scoring categories.

Defense, Defense, Defense

Despite Kreider’s opening strike and the late push punctuated by Sennecke, Anaheim’s offense was once again out-paced by its porous defense.

Again, on the whole, the Ducks defensive systems are fairly solid. Set up and in the zone, the Ducks defense is usually doing its job. However, it’s the glaring one-off mistakes, miscommunications and transition miscues that have continually done them in.

Anaheim’s No. 1 defenseman, Jackson LaCombe, was unfortunately at the scene of four goals.

Washington’s opening goal started with a high arcing dump-in, which came in with a bit of backspin to hop out of the retreating LaCombe’s reach. Sourdif sniped off the transition chance.

The Capitals went ahead on a turnover in the neutral zone. LaCombe came out of the Ducks zone cleanly and a pass at center ice went under Leo Carlsson’s stick. LaCombe couldn’t recover on the deflection, and again, the Capitals went the other way for a Sourdif snipe.

On the third goal, LaCombe couldn’t win the puck from Ryan Leonard on a rim around, and as LaCombe slid back in front, Leonard got the puck back sent back to him. Leonard had the space to stuff it shortside through Mrázek, who would also like a few saves back on Monday.

LaCombe was a victim on the fourth Capitals goal, as all three Ducks forwards changed behind a transition play. Washington then entered the zone four-on-two against LaCombe and Jacob Trouba. Trouba slid to the ice and out of the play, and LaCombe couldn’t break up the play in front, as the Capitals simply passed it around.

On Mrázek’s fifth goal against, Alex Ovechkin was given time and space to just rip it by the Czech goaltender.

Anaheim has allowed five or more goals in seven of its last 17 games.

Monday showed that the Ducks’ offense is still in there, but if Anaheim is to dig out of this hole, the defense (and frankly, the goaltending) will need to tighten up, as the Pacific Division continues to close the gap.

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