Preview: Ducks Pay First Visit to Utah for Sunday Matinee

The Ducks will visit Salt Lake City for the first time in franchise history today, taking on the Utah Hockey Club at Delta Center.

PUCK DROP: 2 P.M. PT | WATCH: VICTORY+ | AUDIO: DUCKS STREAM | NHL GAMECENTER

Anaheim's annual "dads trip" begins with the front half of a back-to-back, as the Ducks look to bounce back from a tight 4-2 defeat to the Colorado Avalanche Friday night at Honda Center. Trailing by two early in the third period, the Ducks would get back within one on Alex Killorn's seventh goal of the season, but could not find a late equalizer on a power-play chance with four minutes to play.

"Well, it’s frustrating, I thought 5-on-5 we played a really good game," head coach Greg Cronin said. "It was a real solid game for us, I think we had outshot 5-on-5 by 24 to 14. Our special teams, just the power play did not generate much. Like I said before, when the power play gets scoring chances it has high shot volume attempts, your bench feels good. They get on their toes and it is just feeding [an] offensive mindset, but tonight it wasn’t generating anything like as far as shot volume and then they scored [a shorthanded goal]."

Despite the loss, which dropped the Ducks to 12-15-4 on the season, the team felt the Colorado game was another step towards establishing consistency after strong performances in wins over Columbus and Winnipeg.

"I thought we played, actually, a pretty good game all together, 5-on-5," Killorn said. "They are a veteran team, they have won before so they’re gonna try to find ways to win and they did tonight, especially on the special teams, they did a good job. They scored on the PK which really hurts and then they scored another one on the powerplay. Veteran team, they found a way to win but all together, like 5-on-5, I thought we played pretty decent."

Added Cronin, "I looked at the shot totals after the first period, I think it was 12 to four for us, we had [no goals]. But, we played well, we played well defensively and it was frustrating we didn’t get least a point.

"I thought the effort was there all over the ice, it was a lot of good one-on-one puck battles we won and we had a pretty good night on the faceoff dot."

Anaheim now hits the road for matchups with Utah and Vegas before the holiday break, today looking for their season win this season over the NHL's newest franchise. The Ducks claimed a dramatic 4-3 overtime win in the season's first meeting, clinching the extra point on Leo Carlsson's game-winner.

"We knew it was going to be a bit of a track meet," Trevor Zegras said that night. "As much as we could, we tried to not play a track meet but they're so young, skilled and fast that you kind of have to respect their speed. Stay to the inside and just play tough. It was a really good game."

Utah now finds itself right in the thick of the playoff race, currently riding a seven-game point streak to move within two points of Colorado for third in the Central Division.

“Bench was rock solid," Utah coach Andre Tourigny told NHL.com's Jessi Pierce after Friday's 2-1 win over Minnesota. "I think we defended well, we kept them as much as possible on the outside. They're a tough team to play. They have elite players, but really happy the way we played against their top player in the second part of the game, not really in the first, but I think we got better.”

Utah (16-11-5, 37 points) sits fifth in the Central Division.