Anaheim will hope to hit the three-day break on a high note after dropping both halfs of a back-to-back this week to Los Angeles and Minnesota. The Ducks led 1-0 early in the second period against the Wild, but a swarm of consecutive penalties and a tough third period helped the Wild to a comeback win.
"I thought the guys played pretty well," Adam Henrique said. "It was one of those that you turn and throw it to the net and it gets a bounce off of our guy. It's that bad luck, and three penalties after that takes the wind out of the sails a bit."
A key focus for Anaheim tonight will be staying out of the penalty box after conceding 11 combined power plays to the Wild and Kings.
"It killed us. I think we're third or fourth in the league right now at being penalized and it has to stop," head coach Dallas Eakins said. "When the games are going well, there's a rhythm to the game. When the penalties start, it starts
throwing things off.
"That's the disappointing thing because 5-on-5, we actually played quite well, but you leave the game and you have a sour taste in your mouth because all of the penalties took us out of our rhythm."
The Ducks will likely turn again to rookie Lukas Dostal in net tonight, with both John Gibson and Anthony Stolarz still out of action. Dostal has at least 35 saves in each of his last three starts.
Anaheim sits 9-21-3 on the season, with a 5-8-0 mark on home ice.
The Ducks will host a Flames squad closing out a four-game west coast road trip. Calgary opened the trek with consecutive wins over San Jose, outscoring the Sharks 12-5, but fell in overtime Thursday night to the Kings on Adrian Kempe's clinching goal.
Tonight's game will also feature a duel between two head coaches who know one another quite well in Eakins and Calgary bench boss Darryl Sutter, who served in an advisory role to Eakins on Anaheim's staff for the 2019-20 season.
"It looks we were pretty good on the hire. We let him go and now his team is really good," Eakins said with a smile before a meeting last season. "He used to be a pain in my butt walking around here all the time and now his team is a pain in our butt. I love the man dearly. They don't come much finer than Darryl Sutter."
Anaheim and Calgary open a four-game season series tonight, with the Flames set to return to Honda Center on Mar. 21 while the Ducks pay visits to Scotiabank Sattledome on Mar. 10 and Apr. 2.
The Flames (15-12-7, 37 points) are fifth in the Pacific Division, just narrowly behind the arch-rival Oilers in the playoff race.
