After getting a well-earned two-day break in Southern California, the Pittsburgh Penguins resume a seven-day road trip on Thursday night with a game against the slumping Anaheim Ducks.
It’s the fourth contest on a trip that began with three games over four days — a run that also included a six-hour coast-to-coast flight to Los Angeles after a 4-1 loss to the NHL-leading Washington Capitals on Saturday.
Despite the long travel, the Penguins bounced back to defeat the Los Angeles Kings 5-1 on Monday in what Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan called “one of the better games we played all year.”
Center Sidney Crosby, who had a goal and an assist against the Kings, agreed.
“I thought everyone played well,” Crosby said. “It was a great effort on both sides of the puck. … Thought we managed the game really well.”
“It’s tough playing three (games) in four (nights) and obviously traveling coast to coast and not having a day in between to adjust to the time change,” said Penguins winger Anthony Beauvillier, who added a goal and an assist on Monday. “But I thought we stuck together. Everyone was involved in all facets of the game.”
It was just the third regulation home loss of the season for the Kings (14-3-1).
“I thought we played with a ton of energy,” Sullivan said. “We did a real good job of playing on top of them in the offensive zone.”
Although they enter the Thursday contest seventh in the Metropolitan Division with 48 points, the Penguins, who are 2-4-0 over their past six games, are just four points out of a wild-card spot in the very tightly bunched Eastern Conference playoff race.
Anaheim stumbles into the contest having lost four in a row (0-3-1) and seven of its past eight (1-5-2). The offensively challenged Ducks are further behind in the race for the playoffs than are the Penguins, sitting nine points behind the Calgary Flames for the Western Conference’s final wild-card slot.
Anaheim, shut out in three of its past six games, ranks last in the NHL in goals scored with 111 and an average of 2.36 goals per game. The Ducks are 1-23-4 when scoring two goals or fewer in a game.
The Ducks jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first five minutes against the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Tuesday when Frank Vatrano scored a power-play goal. However, Anaheim then surrendered three consecutive goals in the period, including Carter Verhaeghe’s tally that proved to be the game-winner.
Verhaeghe stole the puck from Jacob Trouba in the right corner and then beat Lukas Dostal with a sharp-angled shot from the bottom of the right circle.
“We just were in and out of it, in terms of focus,” Anaheim coach Greg Cronin said. “Turnovers, the third goal, all you have to do is rim the puck out, they’re changing (lines), and we throw the puck back into the area where there’s a guy sitting.”
Florida then took control of the game with two goals in the first 4:17 of the third period to stretch its lead to the eventual 5-2 final score.
“We’re scraping and clawing to get points here, we’re trying to stay in the playoff race,” Cronin said. “That was a period where we needed to have an A-plus period, and we didn’t have it.”
Forward Trevor Zegras returned to Anaheim’s lineup after missing 22 games following knee surgery. He failed to score on four shots while going minus-2 in 15:48 time on ice.
–Field Level Media
