The Anaheim Ducks seem to become easier prey with every game that goes by.
They’ll try to show some fight when they visit the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
Anaheim is coming off a 7-0 loss at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday. The Ducks have been outscored 16-1 in their past three games to keep their season point total at 17, the fewest in the NHL.
The Ducks haven’t found any chemistry on the road either, losing their past nine games away from Anaheim (0-7-2).
“It’s unacceptable,” Ducks forward Troy Terry said. “This year, everyone knows how hard it’s been, but all we have is each other and that’s been the message. Sometimes games aren’t going to go our way, but to not play for each other, it’s unacceptable.”
Terry was mainly referring to the third period against the Maple Leafs, when Anaheim gave up three goals on 11 shots.
The Ducks were down to their third-string goalie by then.
Lukas Dostal was recalled from San Diego of the American Hockey League last weekend after Anthony Stolarz sustained a lower-body injury in a 6-1 loss to the visiting San Jose Sharks on Friday.
John Gibson left midway through the second period against Toronto with a lower-body injury, the seventh time in 22 starts this season he has not finished a game.
“I’m embarrassed the way we let Lukas down in the third,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said. “It’s the one thing that this team hasn’t done this year. They’ve always worked for each other and we had a few players that decided they were just going to play by themselves and it cost us.”
The Ducks were also forced to use 11 forwards and seven defensemen against the Maple Leafs after forward Max Jones sustained an upper-body injury during warmups.
The Ducks recalled Olle Eriksson Ek from San Diego on Wednesday and he’ll likely back up Dostal against the Canadiens.
The Canadiens have played better than the Ducks this season, but have lacked the consistency to be a playoff contender.
Montreal is coming off a 3-2 loss at the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night. The Canadiens rallied from a three-goal deficit at the start of the third period to make it close at the end, but couldn’t pull even.
Montreal has one regulation win in its past six games (2-3-1).
Christian Dvorak scored against the Senators to pull the Canadiens within a goal, but after the game he was already looking ahead to Anaheim.
“It’s always nice, but doesn’t really matter when you lose,” Dvorak said of his sixth goal of the season. “We’ve got a quick turnaround and a big game (Thursday), so just have to get prepared for that and get two points.”
Montreal had to kill seven penalties on Wednesday, but were only successful five times. Playing short-handed for that much of the game prevented the Canadiens from generating any consistency in the offensive end.
“We’ve got to stay out of the box,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said.
The Canadiens were also 0-for-3 on the power play, though St. Louis wasn’t unhappy with the play of that unit.
“I felt like our power play, we controlled things,” he said. “We’re going to keep working on it.”
–Field Level Media
