ANAHEIM –– Monday’s thrilling overtime win on the heels of a buzzer beater put the Ducks back in first place, but back-to-back hosting duties could jostle teams, jockey positions and jumble the standings anew.
The Ducks will welcome the Boston Bruins on Wednesday and Ottawa Senators on Thursday for an Atlantic Division double dip.
On Monday, the Ducks’ 3-2 win over the Utah Mammoth unseated the Kings from their precarious perch atop the Pacific. But just a week earlier, the Kings were outside the playoff picture entirely and a month before that they had been tied for 30th among 32 teams.
In all, 10 franchises had an identical point total of 22 points Tuesday morning, including Ottawa. Twenty-one clubs, including Boston with 24, had totals between 20 and 24 points.
“This is probably as tight as I’ve seen it,” said 67-year-old Ducks coach Joel Quenneville, whose time in the NHL dates to the 1970s. “Everybody’s in it. It’s unbelievable. Everybody’s one, two, three or four games over .500. You look like you’re out of the playoffs, but you’re only a couple points out of first place, and that changes every day.”
The Ducks had the fifth-highest points percentage and total in the NHL, but were four seconds away from coming up empty-handed and losing a fourth straight game when Troy Terry came up with an equalizer. A wise-beyond-his-years play by Beckett Sennecke set up Olen Zellweger’s overtime winner to complete the comeback, getting the Ducks on track after their league-leading offense had gone dim during their three-game funk.
“Any time you win, especially in that fashion, it gives you even more energy and momentum. As a team, I hope we take that and keep running with it,” Terry said. “We were scoring so much to start the year, and now, hopefully, getting back on the right side of things can slingshot us offensively.”
Quenneville and Terry remarked that contests were more competitive with opponents raising their level from the earlier going.
“You can feel the desperation in these games now,” Terry said. “It’s the same for us. A week ago, we were on a [seven-game winning] streak and then all of a sudden, (against Utah), it felt like, I don’t want to say it was a must-win game in November, but it felt that way.”
He added: “Our maturity as a group is starting to get there, which is kind of the biggest difference.”
Ottawa and particularly Boston have had their share of spikes and dips. The Senators most recently had their seven-game points streak snapped by the Kings in a 1-0 snooze north of the border. Boston started its campaign with three wins in a row, then dropped six straight in regulation before balancing it out with a chain of seven victories under first-year head coach Marco Sturm.
Boston at Ducks
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Honda Center
TV: Victory+
Ottawa at Ducks
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Honda Center
TV: Victory+