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VIDEO: Ducks Clipped By The Wild

Photo: NHL

By Eddie Richard

The Anaheim Ducks and Duckslings look to bring in their momentum from Wednesday’s explosive home opener win.

The young guns stepped up, they were solid on special teams and John Gibson did what he does best which was to stop pucks. Tonight was the season opener for Minnesota.

Pre-game:

This is the first of three meetings between the Ducks (1-0-0) and the Wild (0-0-0). The Ducks are without Troy Terry with a non-Covid illness. Sam Steel and Josh Mahura are both healthy scratches.

Gibson is out with a due to a lower-body injury. Anthony Stolarz would get the start Lukas Dostal would assume the backup role. The Wild would turn to Cam Talbot between their pipes.

The Game:

The first: The Ducks would get on the board first, but it was unfortunately due to an interference call on Hampus Lindholm. The rest was all Stolarz with his magnificent sprawling saves to stopping all 15 shots his faced. Things starting heating when Max Jones and Marcus Foligno would drop the gloves after crashing Talbot’s net.

Foligno would receive an addition minor penalty interfere and the Ducks would get their first power play. Jones and Foligno also received ten-minute game misconduct penalties. The Ducks made their ten shots count but would end up ending the first 0-0.

The second: The Ducks would have 1:08 on power play time to start the second period. They only needed 17 seconds for Jakob Silfverberg to score a power play goal on a wrap-around shot. The Ducks (Greg Pateryn) would get a slashing call to put the Ducks back on the penalty kill, but they once again killed it off.

It would be the Ducks turn to go back on the power play as the Nico Sturm gets the hooking call; however, the Ducks could not get another goal. The parade to the box does not stop as Silfverberg gets called for hooking and the Wild would score to tie the game 1-1. The Ducks would go back on the power play as the period was ending, but did not score and the game was tied at 1-1 to end the second.

The third: The Ducks started the third period with 1:22 seconds of power play time, but the Ducks did not convert. Each team would trade chances and again each team would get the man advantage, but neither team would capitalize. The game looked as if overtime would be needed until Foligno was allowed to stay in front of the net and put in a rebound go-ahead goal to solidify the win for the Wild in the final seconds.  

Team stats:

Silfverberg gets his first goal, which was on the power play, of the season. Max Jones gets the first fight of the Ducks season. Stolarz made 41 saves out of the 43 shots he faced. Nic Deslauriers had a team high of six hits.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

Good: Stolarz looked to be in top form and will server as an above average backup goalie he looked great in net tonight and has not skipped a beat from last season. Once again, an Anaheim goalie stole the show and he almost stole at least a point tonight.

The bad: The Ducks giving up their lead and not being able to at least hold off the eight seconds to be able to earn a point in overtime.

The ugly: The is the second consecutive game where the opposing team was allowed to run into the Ducks goalie with zero consequence.

Analysis:

The Ducks started off well, even though they were getting outshout most of the game. The Wild were more about quantity than quality. The quality shots the Wild put were stopped by Stolarz. The Ducks seemed too passive in their own zone and gave to Wild too much time and space to move the puck around. 

The Ducks shot themselves in the foot by not creating havoc in front of their net, which led to the go-ahead goal and eventually the loss. We saw the Ducks resort back to their old ways when they received a little pressure.

Next Game:

The Ducks will play head on their first road trip as they head to Calgary to take on the Flames on Monday Oct. 18, 2021, at 6:00 PT.

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October 15th, 2021

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