The Ducks will visit the Pacific Northwest tonight for the finale of a two-game Canadian road trip, facing off with the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena.
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Anaheim heads west from Alberta after suffering an 8-2 defeat Sunday night to the Oilers. Max Jones scored twice in the first period that night, giving the Ducks a pair of early leads, but Edmonton's potent offensive attack would take over late in the opening frame and roll from there.
"The game got a bit out of control there and there was lots of frustation," Jones said postgame. "We need to do a better job at managing that frustration. Lately, we've been hammering the message of trying to stay out of the box and we definitely didn't do a good job of that."
“We started good and that was one of our priorities, we just blew coverages,” head coach Greg Cronin added to NHL.com's Gerry Moddejonge. “They’ve got, obviously, a fast team and we let them get behind us, and you can’t do that against the Edmonton Oilers.
“It’s terrible to be on the losing side of an 8-2 game, but...we’ll learn from it. We’re on a bit of a losing streak. We’ve got to figure out a way to get out of it.”
The loss pushed Anaheim's winless skid to six games and dropped the club to 9-11-0 on the season, sixth in the Pacific Division.
"Winning streaks, losing streaks, we have to step away from focusing on those," Cronin said. "I told [the team] to look at the game as a learning opportunity. It's a long season...We just need to move forward."
The Ducks now visit Vancouver, hoping to snap that streak against one of the Pacific Division's top teams. The Canucks raced out to a terrific start early this season, winning 10 of their first 13 games (10-2-1) and posting an 7-1-1 mark in their first nine home contests.
The last few weeks haven't been as smooth though, as the Canucks have gone just 5-5-0 in their last 10 games, including a 4-3 defeat in San Jose on Saturday.
"We worked hard tonight and we tried at the end to come back," Canucks coach Rick Tocchet told reporters postgame. "You've got to respect your opponents. This is a learning lesson. Playoff teams don't do this sort of stuff."
"I think the lesson for us [is play a] full 60 minutes," added first-year Canucks winger Sam Lafferty. "When we've done that this year, we've had a lot of success. So I think that's the formula for us."
Vancouver (14-7-1, 29 points) sits third in the Pacific Division.
