The Anaheim Ducks aim to open their four-game road trip with a second consecutive win Thursday night when they visit the floundering Toronto Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n
The Ducks started their trip Tuesday night with a 4-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on the strength of three consecutive goals in a 1:44 span of the second period. That improved them to 8-2-0 in their past 10 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cA month ago, it was a different situation,\u201d said Ducks forward Alex Killorn, who had a goal and an assist Tuesday. \u201cThen we go on a run, and now we\u2019re first in the Pacific. You try not to think about it too much, but it\u2019s just one of those things that it\u2019s so tight, every game is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good mix, we\u2019ve got good balance,\u201d Ducks coach Joel Quenneville added. \u201cWe know we can score goals, and (Tuesday) is a good thing to bounce back to, about knowing that we can check, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory followed a 4-0 home loss to the St. Louis Blues on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to do one thing,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cWe want to make the playoffs. That\u2019s our priority, that\u2019s our goal. You don\u2019t want to look past our next opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their next opponent basically has played its way out of playoff contention since the Olympic break. The Maple Leafs have not won since Feb. 3, a 5-2 road decision over the Edmonton Oilers that took them into the break on a three-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
The Maple Leafs dropped their eighth in a row (0-6-2) on Tuesday, a 3-1 road loss to the Montreal Canadiens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think parts of all the games we\u2019ve been playing, we\u2019ve been playing snippets of good hockey, and that\u2019s not how we want to play,\u201d said William Nylander, who scored Toronto\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n
Montreal controlled the first period when they took a 2-0 lead while holding an 18-5 advantage in shots on goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey definitely had the play in the first for sure, had the puck,\u201d Toronto coach Craig Berube said. \u201cYou know, we didn\u2019t check it off them, and then when we did, we didn\u2019t do anything with the puck.\u201d<\/p>\n
The winless streak is the Maple Leafs\u2019 longest since an 11-game drought (0-10-1) during the 2014-15 season.<\/p>\n
Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews did not score Tuesday for the 12th straight game, one short of the longest scoring drought of his career.<\/p>\n
Benoit-Olivier Groulx, recalled from the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League, played 14:13 in his first NHL game since April 12, 2024, and had a good scoring chance and two shots on goal.<\/p>\n
Groulx led Marlies scorers with 27 goals and 50 points this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been difficult the past few years, with injuries and not playing,\u201d Groulx said. \u201cIt\u2019s rewarding, all the work I\u2019ve done the past few years, to get back to the NHL.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Anaheim\u2019s win over the Jets, Ryan Poehling and Jackson LaCombe joined Killorn in contributing one goal and one assist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was one of our most complete games when you look at three periods,\u201d Killorn said. \u201cA lot of games, we\u2019ve been down and had to come back. We were down here (Tuesday), but for a majority of the game, we played the right way. It was a great game for our team. \u2026We didn\u2019t make any stupid turnovers. They\u2019re going to get chances, it\u2019s going to happen, but I thought we limited them as much as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anaheim had a 35-13 advantage in shots on goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Anaheim Ducks aim to open their four-game road trip with a second consecutive win Thursday night when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[2210,233,5292,1739,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-498824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim-ducks","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-ducks","10":"tag-anaheimducks","11":"tag-ducks","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116213214599557423","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498824","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=498824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}