Ducks stifled by St. Louis, shut out to end successful home stretch

ANAHEIM, Calif. – There had been so much fire, energy and vigor from the Anaheim Ducks in this season-long homestand, but the visiting St. Louis Blues made every effort to snuff that out.

The Ducks were stifled offensively, including an 0-for-5 showing on the power play, as the Blues won their fourth game in a row, 4-0, and their sixth straight at Honda Center on Sunday.

Anaheim was shut out for the fourth time this season on just 22 shots.

“They’ve been defending really good as a team, so we just couldn’t get anything going on,” Mikael Granlund said. “They had guys under the puck all the time. We weren’t really getting any out of my rushes, so they did a good job.”

Anaheim still put up a solid 7-2-0 record on the nine-game homestand–split up by the Olympic break with two on the front end and a season-long seven straight on the back end.

The Ducks have won 10 of their last 12 home games with a 14-4-0 record in their last 18 games. Anaheim is 22-10-1 at home.

“Nine straight, you’re gonna find something wrong with one or two of them,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said, “and no excuses. That’s just the way it works, but we caught them on a good night, and that happens in our game.”

Ville Husso made 31 saves in his second start in three games. Beckett Sennecke, Jacob Trouba and Tim Washe each registered a team-high three shots on goal.

Cutter Gauthier, third in the NHL in shots on goal, did not register a shot on net and saw his four-game goal streak end.

“They executed well,” Jackson LaCombe said. “They’re hard to get chances off the rush and they kind of keep everything to the outside. So they did a good job of doing that, and we just couldn’t figure it out.”

Anaheim (35-24-3, 73 points) stayed in first place in the Pacific Division by the end of the night, thanks to a regulation win by Edmonton (31-25-8, 70 points) in Vegas (29-21-14, 71 points). The Ducks still have one game in hand on the Knights and Oilers with 19 games to play.

Seattle (29-24-9, 67 points) is six points behind Anaheim in the second wild card with one fewer game played.

The Ducks next go out on a four-game eastward Canadian road trip. Anaheim will be in Winnipeg on Tuesday, Toronto on Thursday, Ottawa on Saturday and Montreal on Sunday.

Anaheim will next host Trevor Zegras and the Philadelphia Flyers on March 18.

Power play skips a cycle

Anaheim’s power play had been fairly hot. The Ducks had scored one power play goal in five of the six games of the homestand leading into Sunday and nine of its last 14 games overall. 

The power play was clicking at 23.8% over the homestand and 26.8% over the last 14 games.

Until the Blues rolled into town.

Despite five power play opportunities against St. Louis, the Ducks only managed two shots on goal on seven shot attempts. The Blues actually pushed back for three shorthanded shots on goal in the first period.

“We didn’t execute, obviously,” LaCombe said. “Some of our break-ins were good, but we just didn’t possess the puck well and just kind of threw pucks away a little bit. It wasn’t good.”

Anaheim is converting at a rate of 18.5% for the season, 23rd in the NHL, which is a step up from where it has been in previous campaigns.

“Power play has been good. Today, it wasn’t hot right off the bat,” Quenneville said. “It might have had a decent one to start, and after that, we didn’t get any zone time. They pressured. They got on us before we got anything moving around and going through. They cut off lanes. They blocked a ton of shots tonight.”

The unit has been streaky this season, but obviously helpful for this successful homestand.

Line-Up Tweaks: Granlund back, McTavish to wing

Mikael Granlund came off of injured reserve on Sunday, fully ready to go after suffering an upper-body injury in Finland’s bronze medal victory at the Winter Olympics in Milan.

Granlund slotted into the second-line center spot with Alex Killorn on left wing and Beckett Sennecke on the right wing.

This put Mason McTavish in a squeeze. McTavish had been switching between second-line and third-line center, and his production had struggled. The 23-year-old has just one assist in the last six games and two assists in the last nine games – no goals.

Ryan Poehling, who signed a four-year contract extension last week, has excelled in penalty killing roles with a recent flash of offense, and Tim Washe has carved out a spot as a hard-working fourth-line center.

On Sunday, McTavish slotted over to the left wing with Poehling as the third-line center and Frank Vatrano on right wing.

“We’ve got five centers,” Quenneville said. “Granny coming back, he was playing good center before. Granny can play the wing as well. There’s options.”

McTavish got clipped in the mouth late in the first period and didn’t return until partway through the second period with a puffy upper lip.

Quenneville said he didn’t want to put too much stock in McTavish’s foray on the wing due to those circumstances.

Injury Report: Terry, Carlson remain out

With Mikael Granlund coming off injured reserve back into the Ducks line-up on Sunday, Anaheim took one step towards being fully healthy for the first time since December.

Two Ducks remain on the mend: Troy Terry and newly acquired John Carlson.

Terry (upper-body) has not skated with the team since the win over Edmonton on Feb. 25, missing the last six games. It’s the same upper-body injury that forced Terry out of 11 games in January.

Terry has skated on his own the last couple days and is expected to join the Ducks on their upcoming road trip. However, Joel Quenneville said the longtime Duck is unlikely to play on the trip.

Carlson, who was traded to the Ducks on Thursday after 17 seasons with the Washington Capitals, missed his second game on the Anaheim roster. On Friday, he was in transit, and on Sunday, he was officially out with a lower-body injury.

Carlson left early in Washington’s last game before the Olympic break on Feb. 5 and missed the Capitals first four games after the break with the injury, which was labelled day-to-day on Feb. 22. Carlson had been practicing in Washington and skated fully in his first Ducks practice on Saturday.

Carlson will also join the team on this upcoming road trip, and Quenneville pointed to the end of the trip as a target for Carlson’s first game as a Duck.