The Anaheim Ducks can take a major step towards locking up their first Pacific Division title in nine years when they visit the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The Ducks (41-27-4, 86 points) own a five-point lead over the Oilers (36-28-9, 81 points) for first place in the division and have 10 regular-season games remaining while the Oilers have nine.<\/p>\n
The Vegas Golden Knights, who are seven points behind Anaheim, also have nine games remaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery point is magnified,\u201d Edmonton forward Zach Hyman said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to gain points when there are only nine games left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edmonton stayed on Anaheim\u2019s heels with a 4-3 overtime win at Las Vegas on Thursday night, a couple hours after the Ducks wrapped up a 3-2 overtime road win over the Calgary Flames.<\/p>\n
Edmonton let three one-goal leads slip away against Vegas before defenseman Evan Bouchard won it at 3:10 of overtime. The Oilers will try for three wins in a row against the Ducks, a streak they have put together just once this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking more like we\u2019re playing a playoff game,\u201d Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. \u201cLike, things matter. Things like attention to detail. We\u2019re simplifying our game. It\u2019s nice to see. The games are so important right now that everyone seems like they\u2019re dialed in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ducks will try for their fifth straight win, something they\u2019ve already accomplished three times this season.<\/p>\n
Anaheim kept its winning streak alive with the overtime win against the Flames, its NHL-leading 25th come-from-behind win this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe magically tied it late and we scored late, late in overtime,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cWe\u2019ll take it, but I still think it would be nice to clean some things up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikael Granlund scored his second goal of the game with 3:33 left in regulation to tie the score against the Flames, and then completed the hat trick with one second left in overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s easier ways to find a way to win a game, but that\u2019s how it\u2019s been,\u201d Granlund said. \u201cI think we need to try to get better starts and score the first goal. We know in the playoffs that\u2019s going to be really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Granlund is catching fire at the right time, scoring seven goals in his four-game goal streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels good, I guess I\u2019ll just keep shooting as long as this lasts,\u201d he said. \u201cThe pucks are just going in right now, so obviously it\u2019s a good feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ducks played Calgary without forwards Jansen Harkins and Troy Terry.<\/p>\n
Harkins sustained an upper-body injury in a 5-3 win at the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday, while Terry was a late scratch due to a lower-body injury. Terry has missed 20 games this season due to injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had some maintenance days with him before, and we\u2019ll say (Thursday) was one too,\u201d Quenneville said of Terry.<\/p>\n
Anaheim defenseman Radko Gudas left Thursday\u2019s game with a lower-body injury in the second period. Gudas was in his second game back after serving a five-game suspension for kneeing Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews and ending his season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s OK,\u201d Quenneville said of Gudas. \u201cWe\u2019ll check on him (Friday).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Anaheim Ducks can take a major step towards locking up their first Pacific Division title in nine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[2210,233,5292,1739,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-526410","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\/116303175496443793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526410","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=526410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}