{"id":312577,"date":"2025-11-20T08:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T08:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/312577\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T08:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T08:02:10","slug":"ducks-turn-back-boston-comeback-with-crucial-dostal-stops-moore-game-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/312577\/","title":{"rendered":"Ducks turn back Boston comeback with crucial Dost\u00e1l stops, Moore game-winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2013 It\u2019s an embarrassment of riches for the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> and their young core, and while the veterans got them ahead early, it was the kids that closed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Goals by Jansen Harkins, Radko Gudas and Ryan Strome gave the Ducks a two-goal lead, and despite the Boston Bruins tying the game in the third, Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l made crucial saves to pave the way for Ian Moore game-winning goal and back-to-back victories at Honda Center, 4-3.<\/p>\n

Anaheim swept the season series with Boston with two game-winning strikes to break ties in the final five minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHard fought game,\u201d Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. \u201cWe were fortunate at the end of the night (in Boston) saying, oh my God, we scored the big goals late, and tonight kind of got the same comparable result, where they had a territorial edge on us, and they had quality, and goaltending, our goalie was great. And we battled\u2026 We played our best hockey when they tied it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dost\u00e1l made a season-high 36 saves, none bigger than a sprawling save in a tie game with eight minutes to go on Boston\u2019s Morgan Geekie, who had two power play goals.<\/p>\n

Just a few minutes later, Ian Moore started a rush with a deft pass to Chris Kreider out of Anaheim\u2019s zone, and on the other end of the ice, the 24-year-old Harvard grad rookie blasted a shot through Kreider\u2019s screen for the go-ahead goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of had my head down and tried to get something on net,\u201d Moore said, \u201cespecially when Kreids is in front. When you\u2019re in the slot there, you just want to get something down there and give them something to work with. Good screen by him. He\u2019s a big body couldn\u2019t really see through him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anaheim (13-6-1, 27 points) remained on top of the Pacific Division and pushed its home record out to 7-1-0 on the season. After snapping a seven-game win streak by losing three-of-three on a road trip, the Ducks have pulled out back-to-back one-goal wins at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we grinded tonight,\u201d Strome said. \u201cNot the prettiest game, but coach always says that finding ways to win is a skill, and I think we’re finding that. We did just enough tonight, and I thought we competed real hard. Execution wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take the two points.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ducks are right back at it tomorrow night in the second half of a rare home back-to-back against the Ottawa Senators.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In Anaheim\u2019s first match-up with the Bruins in Boston last month, it was a last-shot wins situation with neither Boston\u2019s Joonas Korpisalo or the Ducks\u2019 Petr Mrazek coming up with a game-changing stop in a back-and-forth, 7-5 Anaheim win.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday in Anaheim, the Ducks\u2019 goaltending was the deciding X Factor, and it was Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l throwing up another wall.<\/p>\n

As Boston dominated the shot chart over the first two periods, it was Dost\u00e1l that held back the surge with 28 stops in the first 40 minutes alone, including denial of a two-on-none Bruins rush to preserve a one-goal lead late in the first period.<\/p>\n

Despite the Bruins tying up the game in the third period, Dost\u00e1l bought Anaheim more time, with a sprawling save to his right just getting a piece of his arm on a potential go-ahead hat trick goal by Morgan Geekie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat save he made on Geekie with like 8 minutes left, which is unbelievable,\u201d Strome said. \u201cOne of the better saves I’ve seen this year. He got all of that, and he made a great save.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s been huge. Obviously, we can rely on him. We don’t want to rely on him as much as we had to tonight, but I mean, he just looks so calm in there. Everything hits him in the chest, it seems like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dost\u00e1l may have even been able to keep the Ducks ahead in the third period, but a friendly fire snow shower by a hard-charging Olen Zellweger seemingly disrupted Dost\u00e1l\u2019s vision on Boston\u2019s game-tying goal.<\/p>\n

However, Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l is as quiet and steady as they come, which allowed him to focus in on the key stops late.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old made good on that and gave a lot more in a bounce-back performance on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

McTavish picked up his first point in five games with an assist on Radko Gudas\u2019 first-period blast, and the No. 2 center put up his first multi-point performance since the second game of the season with a brilliant assist on a magnificent power play deflection by Ryan Strome in the second period.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looked pretty assertive, strong out there, and he’s a huge part of this team,\u201d Strome said. \u201cI know that he’s a team first guy. So I know, you know, last couple of days, he’s been stung a little bit, but the best part about him is he came today with a great attitude, played a great game. So he’s a good leader, great player, and nice to find me there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully passes to me more now,\u201d Strome said with a smile, \u201cso we’ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

McTavish had just one point in his previous six games and only three points in his last nine games, including a gifted empty-netter two weeks ago in Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Mac T (had) his best game in a while,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cDid have to puck more tonight. That line had some, I know, cutter had speed as a game progressed, and Becks does a lot of good things, and there’s some things that we know that we can improve upon. But (McTavish) was dangerous a lot of the night, and that line was effective having the puck way more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ottawa native nearly put in his first goal against a goaltender since Oct. 31 when he stuffed in a puck around the fallen Bruins netminder in the second period. However, the goal was called back on goaltender interference, as the referee concluded that incidental contact with Joonas Korpisalo and McTavish sent Korpisalo to the ice and did not allow the goalie enough time to reset before McTavish\u2019s goal attempt.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a big week for Czechia at Honda Center, including four of its first six preliminary Olympic roster selections in action on Wednesday\u2013Radko Gudas and Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l for the Ducks, and David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha for the Bruins. Matej Blumel also suited up for Boston.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Gudas returned from a lower-body injury, and on Tuesday, the Ducks scored his first goal of the season on a point blast.<\/p>\n

Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l started both games for Anaheim and earned a pair of wins. Petr Mrazek backed up Dost\u00e1l in both games.<\/p>\n

On Boston\u2019s first goal, Zacha picked up an assist on the tipped tally of Morgan Geekie (not Czech), as Blumel also hovered around the crease. Pastrnak earned an assist on the second tipped power play goal by Geekie (still not Czech).<\/p>\n

On Monday, Utah also featured an all-Czech goal crease with starter Karel Vejmelka and back-up Vitek Vanacek. On Saturday, Tomas Hertl and the Vegas Golden Knights will roll into Anaheim.<\/p>\n

A sizable Czech media contingent has been in Orange County all week to document each Ducks morning skate, game and lone optional practice on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2013 It\u2019s an embarrassment of riches for the Anaheim Ducks and their young core, and while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[2210,233,154,95,5132,530,9439,2551,2178,5,13795,25748,1552,3041,3043,2711,285,40,4,9464,6496,5695],"class_list":{"0":"post-312577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-bruins","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-ducks","10":"tag-boston","11":"tag-boston-bruins","12":"tag-bostonbruins","13":"tag-bruins","14":"tag-czech-republic","15":"tag-czechia","16":"tag-david-pastrnak","17":"tag-hockey","18":"tag-ian-moore","19":"tag-jansen-harkins","20":"tag-joel-quenneville","21":"tag-lukas-dostal","22":"tag-mason-mctavish","23":"tag-mighty-ducks","24":"tag-national-hockey-league","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-nhl","27":"tag-radko-gudas","28":"tag-ryan-strome","29":"tag-tst-los-angeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115580983281018908","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}