ANAHEIM — Ducks coach Dallas Eakins expected to see a desperate team on Tuesday night.
He expected that team to be the playoff-contending Dallas Stars.
Clearly, the Ducks were fed up with a winless streak that had reached nine consecutive games, though. They matched the Stars’ desperation with each dash down the Honda Center ice, each punishing hit along the boards, each battle for a loose puck and each skillful play.
In the end, Dallas erased a third-period deficit on goals by Roope Hintz and Jacob Peterson, seizing a 3-2 victory and extending the Ducks’ misery and their winless streak to 10 games in a row (0-8-2). Peterson’s goal on breakaway broke a 2-2 tie at 12:36 of the final period.
The Ducks’ winless streak torpedoed their flickering hopes of ending a three-season playoff drought. They had dropped to seventh place in the Pacific Division. The Stars were fifth in the Central Division, one point behind the Vegas Golden Knights for the second of two wild-card spots.
The Ducks scored an ugly goal and a pretty one in the second period, and since they all count the same, they took a 2-1 lead into the third. Derek Grant fired a sharp-angled shot off a skate and into the net to tie it 1-1 at 3:54 of the second. Troy Terry then scored off the rush to make it 2-1 at 9:48.
John Gibson handled the rest, blanking the Stars in the second with some of his best work in quite some time. He had a steady workload, but the Stars couldn’t crack him after Terry put the Ducks ahead with his team-leading 31st goal. Grant and Trevor Zegras assisted on the goal.
Zegras and Kevin Shattenkirk assisted on Grant’s 12th goal of the season.
Dallas took a 1-0 lead when the Ducks left Radek Faksa uncovered on what turned out to be a two-on-one break with Luke Glendening. Gibson nearly made the save, but the puck slipped past him for a 1-0 lead for the Stars at 14:05 of what was otherwise an evenly-played first.
In fact, the early minutes set the tone for what was to come. The Ducks were sharp from the start three nights after a 4-1 loss to the San Jose Sharks extended their winless streak to 0-7-2. The Stars, rather than the Ducks, struggled to string passes together and to contain the opposition.
Faksa’s goal was perhaps the Ducks’ lone defensive lapse of the opening period. There would be others in the second, but Gibson made up for all manner of mistakes. He denied Michael Raffl from close range with a glove save and stopped Joe Pavelski on another tough chance.
In the closing seconds of the second, Gibson got a little help from the crossbar as an unmarked Alexander Radulov cut toward his net. The puck glanced off the iron and ricocheted out of harm’s way and the horn sounded a moment later, with the Ducks’ 2-1 lead still intact.
Gibson continued to sizzle during a Stars power play in the third period, stopping point-blank tries by Pavelski and Arcadia native Jason Robertson. The Ducks went into the game having given up six power-play goals in 11 short-handed situations covering their past three games.
Hintz tied it 2-2 at 8:28 of the third, after flipping Grant after a faceoff win in the Ducks’ zone. Robertson gained possession of the puck and fed it in front to Hintz, who was unmarked as Grant struggled to get to his feet. Gibson was at Hintz’s mercy and couldn’t react fast enough to make the save.
More to come on this story.
