The Ducks resume a six-game homestand tonight, taking on the Vancouver Canucks on Hockey Fights Cancer Night at Honda Center.
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Anaheim gets back to work tonight after opening the homestand with a disappointing 4-2 loss to Chicago Sunday night. Despite an early edge in shots and scoring chances, the Ducks fell behind 2-0 after the opening 40 minutes and would not be able to rally for a third-period comeback.
"I’m looking at the long view of it," head coach Greg Cronin said. "It’s an 82-game schedule. It’s cliche, but we’re just trying to get better every day. We still have an awful lot of young kids. We have five 21-year-old and youngers, and three or four that are 24-and-younger.
"I’m trying to look at this as like every day we’ve got to find ways to improve. We’ve played 11 games now, after the 10th you kind of know what your team represents, and what the weak parts are and what you need to do to get better. I thought we did a good job [Sunday] defensively in the D-zone. We gave some rush chances where we maybe forced a bit offensively. The priority in our meetings and practice was offensive zone time and I thought that we did that. We did have a lot of offensive zone time. It’s just frustrating with the lack of scoring. I’ve never seen this before, we’re just not scoring."
The setback continued Anaheim's recent offensive struggles, which has seen the club score just nine goals in its last five outings.
"We're a skilled group, but we don't have a skilled enough group to play a completely skilled game," said winger Ross Johnston, who assisted on Anaheim's first goal Sunday. "We’re young, and as I’ve mentioned, sometimes we got to play some ugly hockey, and by ugly I mean just keep it simple. Straight lines, getting the puck in deep, getting our chances by throwing pucks to the goalie’s feet. When you do that, you set up a ground game, and those bounces start going in, your confidence grows, and the skill plays start happening. It stems from simple plays. We got to get back to straight lines and I think our game will turn."
"We were just shooting pucks when we got it [in the first period] and I think that’s when we create a lot of O-zone time and more opportunities for ourselves," added Brock McGinn. "I think we kind of got away from that in the second and third, and they were able to capitalize on some of their opportunities."
The Ducks look to get back on track tonight against the reigning Pacific Division champs, a Canucks squad that kicked off its three-game California road trip with a 3-2 victory Saturday evening in San Jose on a last-minute goal by center Pius Suter.
"I thought we played well. The Sharks played really well too. It was a good up-and-down hockey game," Canucks coach Rick Tocchet told NHL.com's Max Miller postgame. "Obviously, [Suter] with a big game for us and [Connor] Garland made some nice plays. We didn't crack after the game was tied, so I gotta give the guys a lot of credit."
Suter, now in his second season with the Canucks, has four goals in his last five games and skated on the club's top line with Elias Pettersson and Connor Garland at practice earlier this week.
“He's easy to play with,” Garland told the Canucks' Chris Faber of Suter. "Him and [Dakota Joshua] have a lot of similarities. [Like] how smart they are, and they go to the right areas, not the fastest players, but just how they’re in the right areas. They're above the puck at all times. And then when they get their chances, they can bury it. So, I love playing with Sutes.”
The Canucks (5-2-3, 13 points) sit third in the Pacific Division.
