Ducks eye first winning record in five weeks ahead of Freeway Faceoff with Kings

The Ducks will have an opportunity to climb above .500 for the first time in five weeks when they host the Kings in Friday’s post-holiday Freeway Faceoff matinee.

Both teams are coming off signature wins from Wednesday, with the Ducks having broken a chain of eight straight losses to the Kraken via a commanding 5-2 performance in Seattle, while the Kings knocked off the NHL’s best team by practically any barometer, the Winnipeg Jets, in a 4-1 thumping at home.

The Ducks had three multi-point performers, a perfect night (five-for-five) on the penalty kill and another tremendous performance from veteran John Gibson in goal. In the big picture, they felt they were coalescing around a better-defined identity.

“It took us a while to figure it out,” said rookie forward Cutter Gauthier to Victory+ after he piled up a goal and an assist Wednesday. “Playing super fast, playing north and not messing around with [the puck] around the blue lines.”

Gauthier was joined by Trevor Zegras and Alex Killorn as two-point producers. Meanwhile, Brett Leason scored a goal that moved his total to eight points in his past eight games. Veteran defenseman Brian Dumoulin played a game-high 30 shifts against his former team.

Gibson moved to 4-0-1 on the season, and the Ducks have collected nine of a possible 10 points in his five starts since Gibson recovered from an appendectomy.

“I feel pretty good with my reads. I just feel like I’m reading the play well, staying square, staying calm and just having fun,” Gibson told Victory+.

This season’s first Freeway Faceoff unfolded on Oct. 20, when the Kings dispatched the Ducks 4-1. Since then, both teams have continued to ebb and flow, with the Kings not surpassing two consecutive victories yet this year and the Ducks not getting above .500 since Oct. 22.

One area that has shown linear progress of late for the Ducks is their attack. It has produced more than three goals in a game just five times this season, but four of those instances have come in their eight games since Nov. 10.

“We’ve not been scoring a lot of goals this year, the last [few] games we’ve been getting over the two(-goal) mark, which is kind of a humble accolade,” Cronin said to Victory+ while lauding the balanced effort among his four lines on Wednesday.

Frank Vatrano tallied in consecutive games for the first time this season after doing so eight times in 2023-24, when he also had eight multi-goal showings. Zegras gained steam, having compiled seven points in his past six games following a slow start statistically. Gauthier’s third career multi-point output brought his total to five points in his past six games, due to his budding chemistry with Leason.

“Me and Leason have been playing really well together every single time we’ve been on the ice,” Gauthier told Victory+. “We just find each other and read off each other really well.”