ANAHEIM — The Ducks wanted to skate, pass and shoot, but the Dallas Stars wouldn’t let them. Ducks fans wanted to celebrate the offensive wizardry of rookie center Trevor Zegras on the night they gave away his bobblehead on Thursday at Honda Center, but the Stars denied them, too.
The Stars needed two points to vault past the idle Vegas Golden Knights and into the second of two wild-card spots in the Western Conference. They weren’t interested in style points. They wanted to grind out a victory in the second of two games in three nights against the Ducks.
It was as close to playoff hockey as the Ducks will get this season, a game that required patience and will as much as skill before Jamie Benn won it 3-2 for the Stars with a goal 53 seconds into overtime. The Ducks’ winless streak reached 11 games (0-8-3), one shy of the franchise record.
“They checked like they needed those points to make the playoffs,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said of the Stars. “They checked and they checked and they checked. Every time we turned around, they were in our faces. That’s what playoff hockey looks like. There’s no room. It becomes frustrating. For some of our guys who haven’t been through it, that is a good experience.”
Kevin Shattenkirk had countered Andrej Sekera’s goal to rally the Ducks. Shattenkirk’s goal, which tied the score 2-2 at 16:39 of the third period, came via a deflection of Urho Vaakanainen’s perimeter shot. Sekera had smacked home a loose puck at 15:51 of the third.
John Gibson was the best player on the ice for the second consecutive game, keeping the Ducks within striking distance with an array of dazzling saves after the Stars had taken a 1-0 lead on Ryan Suter’s power-play goal midway through a one-sided first period.
Dallas limited the Ducks to only nine attempted shots, with four actually credited as shots on Jake Oettinger’s net. The Stars’ pressure on the puck was unrelenting and the Ducks couldn’t figure out how to beat it and they were hemmed in their own end of the ice for extended stretches.
When the Ducks did break out the puck, they were met with a forest of sticks as they tried to create something resembling sustained pressure. Skating with the puck was difficult. Passing it was even more so. Shooting it? Well, their opportunities were limited to a handful.
“I didn’t think we were ready to play,” Eakins said of the Ducks’ lackluster first period. “We didn’t come out in that first period with a lot of anger. I thought we played better after the first. I don’t want to discount the fact that the Stars are a desperate team. I do think we got our feet underneath us.
“I thought through the last two periods we played hard. They got that late goal and it would have been real easy just to fizzle out. Overall, I thought it was a good effort with the guys we had in the lineup. But we’ve got to find a way to get on the other side. That is a huge challenge right now.”
When it seemed the Ducks might come up empty through two periods, a bit of good fortune enabled them to tie the score 1-1 at 19:20 of the middle period. Jamie Drysdale was credited with his career-high fourth goal of the season, but it was really Oettinger’s gaffe that got the Ducks on the board.
Drysdale sent a shot from near the right point wide of the mark, but the puck ricocheted off the end boards and past Oettinger and into the net. It was a gift, one the Ducks hardly deserved but gladly accepted. Drysdale appeared to be laughing as he celebrated with his teammates.
Thursday’s game made the Stars’ 3-2 victory Tuesday seem like the definition of fire-wagon hockey, which it wasn’t either. Dallas did play it tighter Thursday than Tuesday, content to spend much of the game battling for the puck along the boards and keeping it away from the Ducks.
The last thing the Stars wanted was Zegras making plays in open ice.
Or Troy Terry snapping the puck into the back of the net.
“In the second and third, we were kind of taking it to them a little bit more than letting them play in our end,” Drysdale said. “We had a little bit more ‘O-zone’ time rather than more one-and-done. We were able to create more opportunities, and when you build off those opportunities, you’re more likely to score.”
FACTS AND FIGURES
Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf sat out Thursday for the 10th time in 12 games because of a nagging lower-body injury. … Defenseman Cam Fowler played in his 800th game in the NHL, all with the Ducks. … Eakins iced a lineup with 11 forwards and seven defensemen.
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