ANAHEIM — On their final Legends Night of the season, the Ducks brought out former captain Ryan Getzlaf to a rapturous ovation, but the night ultimately belonged to the NHL’s least-known franchise, the Seattle Kraken, so that the third-year organization defeated its hosts, 3-1, Friday night at the Honda Center.
The Kraken have beaten the Ducks in all four meetings this season, the last three since March 25.
Leo Carlsson scored the Ducks’ only goal unassisted but with plenty of bravado. Lukáš Dostál stopped 24 shots. Radko Gudas (upper body injury) returned to action and characteristically performed a booming hip check on Brandon Tanev in the second period. The Ducks were once again without Pavel Mintyukov and Max Jones, while Mason McTavish (lower body injury) missed his first game since being injured in Calgary on Tuesday.
Seattle rookie Shane Wright doubled his career point total with two goals and an assist. Matty Beniers also scored a goal for Seattle and Oliver Bjorkstrand had two assists. Philipp Grubauer made 14 saves as the Ducks compiled just six shots in the final two thirds of the game.
“From where I was on the bench, it was Leo Carlsson and then there was a huge gap to the rest of the Anaheim Ducks tonight, huge,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “We didn’t do much, we didn’t generate much. He was the only guy that tried to make something happen (on) every play.”
Even down two scores with little choice but to open up their game, the Ducks failed to gain a possession or shooting advantage, much less a third-period goal.
In the second, the first 20 minutes of competition gave way to tilted ice as Seattle spun in a dominating stretch saved only by Carlsson’s late individual effort. Natural Stat Trick had both scoring chances and expected goals above 83% for Seattle, which had 100% of high-danger chances in the second half.
“In the second half, they played a good team game and we didn’t answer,” Cronin said. “We kept turning pucks over, we didn’t defend well and we were lucky it was only (3-1) after two.”
Carlsson found a puck that had been knocked away from Troy Terry floating near the offensive blue line. The 19-year-old Swede, playing his 50th NHL game, made a silky pass between the legs to beat Wright before skating to the inside of the right faceoff circle and unleashing a dazzling wrist shot in front of Grubauer for an unassisted goal. The 10th career total for the 2023 second overall pick arrived with 3:25 on the clock.
“I had a front row seat for that one, so that was pretty cool,” Gudas said. “Given the angle he was shooting at, I would probably break both wrists if I tried to do that.” It was nice to see him do those things and feel confident. I would like to see all our young people feel this confidence.
Carlsson cut what had already become a 3-0 deficit at 11:40 after one of last season’s top rookies, Calder Trophy winner Beniers, knocked Wright’s center pass off his skate and past Dostál. Wright’s three-point night was his first career multi-point effort and gave him four points in three games since his recall from the minors on March 31.
“He was a confident player with the puck and he definitely did a good job on the defensive end as well, but a lot of that is what you do with the puck once you get it back,” said the Seattle coach Dave Hakstol on Wright. .
Seattle had extended its advantage to 2-0 just 2:29 into the period when Wright — the fourth overall pick in the 2022 draft — struck a second time thanks to a less-than-stellar defensive effort by the Ducks. A soft outline somehow covered the entire perimeter of the zone, eluding Cam Fowler, and making its way to Justin Schultz in the right spot. His pass behind the net to Jaden Schwartz brought Fowler out of his position in front of the net, where Wright fired a short lateral shot past Dostál completely unmolested.
“It was just a loss of coverage.” A guy has a guy to cover and he forgets he’s there. It’s just a completely screwed up cover,” Cronin said.
The Ducks may have had the best scoring opportunity of the first half, but Seattle scored its only goal, thanks to a tally from a promising rookie and a remarkable save from one of the first-ever agent signings free from the Kraken.
Wright scored his first goal of the night with 3:52 left in the frame when he curled from the left faceoff dot to the right post to deflect Bjorkstrand’s shot attempt.
“We lose a faceoff – which has been a real problem for us since the (trade) deadline, when we lost two centers, (since) we’ve struggled in the point – then they score on that deflection,” Cronin says.
It was a goal rather than an equalizer thanks to a desperate save by Grubauer’s glove after his skate was cut, sending him to the ice just as Trevor Zegras fired a one-timer into his direction.
Zegras was out for the final 7:25 of Saturday’s outing, after dealing with a minor issue that briefly took him out of the game and getting lost late in the special teams shuffle, Cronin said.
🚨Leo🚨
Between the legs for him and SNIPE 🎯#Traveltogether pic.twitter.com/nJTlpW3yfn
– Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) April 6, 2024
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