“We’re just playing super fast, playing north, we’re not messing around with it around the blue lines,” Gauthier said. “It’s very predictable that way, and when everything’s predictable, it’s an easy game. I feel like we’ve been playing like that recently.”
Added head coach Greg Cronin, "We put pucks deep. You saw it was a physical style to start the game and then I thought we sustained it for the 60 minutes. I’ve been saying all year when you get good sticks and you finish checks, that means you’re skating, and I thought we did a good job of that for 60 minutes.”
The win gave the Ducks points in five of their last six games (4-1-1) and pushed the club to 9-9-3 on the season.
"The penalty killing was terrific," Cronin said. "We had two big kills at the end and I thought they were good the entire game. Your goalie has to be your best penalty killer and he was terrific down the stretch."
Anaheim locked down a two-goal lead in the third Wednesday despite 20 third-period shots by Seattle, ultimately getting a few key stops from John Gibson in net before an insurance marker from Zegras sealed the deal.
"All the lines were going," Cronin said. "I thought Gauthier was really good. He was skating the puck and obviously he got rewarded with a goal and an assist. Our fourth line going us going in the first period, [Jansen Harkins, Ross Johnston and Sam Colangelo] are an interesting combination, but they get after it, they play fearless and they had a lot of zone time.
"I think when you get that production out of your bottom two lines, the other two lines feed off of it."
The Ducks now return home for the season's second Freeway Face-Off, taking on a Kings team that recently responded to a disappointing 7-2 loss to the Sharks with a resilient 4-1 victory over the first-place Jets two nights later.
“We wanted to come out pretty hard and, obviously, we didn’t like the way the last game went,” Kings winger Alex Laferriere told NHL.com's Dan Greenspan. “I think it showed how resilient our group is and how we’re able to bounce back.”
LA claimed a 4-1 win over Anaheim in the opener of a four-game season series back in October, breaking a scoreless tie early in the third period and quickly answering Ryan Strome's late goal to quiet any hopes of a Ducks comeback bid.
The Kings (12-8-3, 27 points) sit third in the Pacific Division.
