Ducks defeat Kraken for 17th win, matching last season’s total

ANAHEIM — A first-place squad defeated a last-place squad Wednesday astatine Honda Center.

The Ducks’ 4-1 triumph implicit the enlargement Seattle Kraken astir apt was to beryllium expected fixed the spread betwixt the teams successful the standings, but their 17th triumph of the 2021-22 was a precise large deal. It is, aft all, the aforesaid fig of wins they had during the pandemic-altered, 56-game 2020-21 season.

Anthony Stolarz made 19 saves successful his 2nd consecutive commencement successful spot of injured goaltender John Gibson and the Pacific-Division-leading Ducks got 1 extremity from each of their 4 lines portion improving to 17-9-5. The Ducks are 7-1-2 successful games against part rivals.

“It’s been fun,” Ducks halfway Sam Carrick said. “We’re a beauteous assured radical close now. We knew what our expectations were astatine the opening of the year. We knew what they were wrong our group. I deliberation the guys person done an astonishing occupation of believing successful each different and sticking with each other.”

Carrick, Trevor Zegras, Derek Grant (shorthanded) and Troy Terry (power play) scored for the Ducks, who built what proved to beryllium a commanding 3-0 pb and were ne'er successful superior jeopardy portion defeating the Kraken (10-16-3) for the 2nd clip successful arsenic galore games this season.

Ryan Donato scored the Kraken’s lone goal, a second-period power-play strike, continuing a signifier of standout goaltending and antiaircraft play for the Ducks. In the past 5 games, the Ducks person fixed up lone 5 goals portion going 4-1-0. They person scored 11 goals successful their past 5 games.

Wednesday’s crippled marked the commencement of a agelong successful which 7 of the Ducks’ adjacent scheduled games are against Pacific Division teams, a accidental to widen their pb and found themselves arsenic thing different than the woeful squad that sank toward the bottommost of the standings past season.

“It benignant of establishes the information that we’re a antithetic squad this year,” Ducks defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said beforehand. “I’m not going to talk for different teams, but I don’t cognize if they’re waiting to spot if the aged Ducks are going to amusement up, but we’re surely trying to proceed connected the way we’ve been going and go a amended squad and go a existent winning team.”

Zegras gave the Ducks a 1-0 pb midway done the archetypal period, his archetypal extremity since his overtime victor was followed by a instrumentality flip into the assemblage Nov. 13 against the Washington Capitals, ending a 13-game drought. It would beryllium incorrect to accidental helium created much magic Wednesday, though.

In reality, backchecking Kraken guardant Jared McCann wiped retired Seattle goaltender Philipp Grubauer, virtually clearing the mode for Zegras to implicit his determination crossed the crystal from the close to the near and hammer the puck into the backmost of the nett for his seventh extremity of the season.

Grant’s shorthanded extremity a small much than 5 minutes aboriginal extended the Ducks’ pb to 2-0. Troy Terry made it 3-0 with his team-leading 18th extremity of the season, whipping a escaped puck implicit Grubauer’s near enarthrosis lone 1:52 into the 2nd play for a power-play strike.

Terry’s extremity ended a five-game drought without a power-play extremity for the Ducks.

Then, conscionable erstwhile it seemed the crippled mightiness crook into a rout for the Ducks, a interruption from a drawstring of choky games that included 1 shootout victory, 1 overtime victory  and 1 shootout nonaccomplishment connected their just-completed 3-1-1 trip, a spot of head-scratching officiating interrupted the proceedings.

Carrick was unjustly penalized for interfering with Grubauer connected a dash toward the Seattle nett astatine 10:29 of the second. Clearly, nary punishment should person been called since the Kraken’s Jayden Schwartz shoved Carrick into the goalie. Oddly, Schwartz was penalized for roughing.

The Ducks’ momentum came to a screeching halt  and, compounding matters, they were correctly penalized for having excessively galore men connected the ice. Donato made the Ducks pay, smacking location a cross-ice walk from Jordan Eberle for a power-play extremity that chopped the Kraken’s shortage to 3-1.

Grubauer exited the crippled aft the 2nd period, replaced by Chris Driedger.

Carrick past bushed Driedger from a crisp space to marque it 4-1 astatine 8:19 of the third. The Ducks kept pushing, kept searching for further scoring chances, buoyed by a boisterous assemblage of 14,762 that cried retired for a 5th extremity and a escaped chickenhearted sandwich giveaway from a accelerated nutrient chain.

“For us, it’s astir the advancement we marque each day,” Grant said. “We’ve believed successful ourselves since time one. I deliberation we’re conscionable having fun. We’re enjoying coming to the rink. We’re enjoying working. … We’re not looking excessively acold guardant and we’re not looking down america astatine what we’ve done, either.”