Recap: Ducks Can't Find Shootout Winner, Fall 5-4 to Wild

The Ducks fought for 65-plus minutes with the Minnesota Wild this afternoon, but Matt Boldy scored the shootout winner, giving the hosts a 5-4 victory at Xcel Energy Center.
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Grabbing a point in the shootout setback, the Ducks have now earned points in two of their last three games (0-1-2) but also pushed their winless streak to five (0-3-2). Anaheim now sits 6-17-2 on the season and 2-10-3 on the road.
Troy Terry (1-1=2), Trevor Zegras (1-1=2) and Mason McTavish (0-2=2) led the Ducks offensively with multi-point efforts. Cam Fowler and Ryan Strome also scored. Dmitry Kulikov, Adam Henrique and Frank Vatrano added assists.
John Gibson made 43 saves in the defeat, his fifth 40-save performance of the season.
Caleb Addison, Connor Dewar, Joel Eriksson-Ek and Kirill Kaprizov scored for the Wild, who improved to 12-9-2 on the season and 7-6-1 on home ice.
Goaltender Filip Gustavsson made 29 saves for his third straight win, the 14th of his NHL career.
Both sides had their share of chances throughout a wide-open first period, combining for 23 shots on net, but it would be the Wild taking a 2-1 lead back to the locker room.
Addison put Minnesota ahead first less than five minutes after puck drop with his fourth career NHL goal, blasting a one-timer off a low-to-high pass by Marcus Foligno that hit an Anaheim defender in front and deflected past Gibson.
The 22-year-old Addison, who added an assist later on, has carved out a prominent role on the Wild defense this season, now with 2-11=13 points in 23 games. He leads club blueliners in points, assists and power-play points (nine).
Foligno, son of former Ducks assistant coach Mike Foligno, drew the primary assist and now has points in his last four matchups against Anaheim.
The Ducks responded just four minutes later, pulling back even when Vatrano spun away from trouble just inside the Wild blue line and fired the puck on net, where Strome got inside positioning on defenseman Jon Merrill and redirected the shot between Gustavsson's legs.

Strome ranks fourth among Ducks leaders in goals (six).
The best chances late in the first came on a pair of net front scrambles for each side's checking line.
Playing in his fourth game with the Wild after a November trade from the Rangers, veteran winger Ryan Reaves got to a rebound in the right circle and fired a low shot that appeared to disappear under Gibson's right pad. With Anaheim's defenders and goaltender alike seemingly expecting a whistle, Dewar crashed the crease hard and found the puck free, which he quickly shoved through Gibson to put Minnesota back in front.
The assist marked Reaves' first point with the Wild, and his first point of the season.
Anaheim nearly flipped the script a couple shifts after when Jakob Silfverberg, Derek Grant and Sam Carrick swarmed the Minnesota crease looking for a rebound chance, but Gustavsson was able to find the puck through a swarm of bodies digging for it.
The host's 2-1 lead would last to the midway point of the second period, when Fowler continued his strong power-play work of late with the tying goal. McTavish evaded the check of two Wild defenders along the wall, getting the puck to Fowler in the middle of the ice. The 13th-year Duck drifted to his left while searching for a shooting lane, eventually firing his shot through the screen of Terry parked in front of the net and over Gustavsson's left shoulder to level the score at two.

Fowler has points in three of his last four games, and three power-play points in that span. He paces Duck defenders in nearly every offensive category.
With two assists, McTavish now owns 6-10=16 points in 34 career NHL games. He ranks tied for fourth among all rookies in scoring this season (4-9=13).
It appeared that 2-2 tie would hold into the third period, but Anaheim beat the buzzer in the middle frame with a goal that looked quite similar to the one that gave Minnesota the lead in the first.
Kulikov, who posted a career-best +23 rating with Minnesota last year before a preseason trade to Anaheim, took the shot from along the left wing wall, and it initially seemed like Gustavsson had swallowed it up in his gear. However, much like Dewar did for the Wild earlier, Zegras crashed the net hard and found the rebound, giving the Ducks a 3-2 edge at the second intermission.

Like the opening frame, the third period saw plenty of back-and-forth action, with Anaheim twice unable to lock down a late one-goal lead.
Eriksson-Ek initially tied the game five minutes into the frame with a power-play goal, getting to a rebound down low after Addison's shot from the right faceoff circle.
Anaheim answered right back with a power-play goal of their own, reclaiming the lead just a few minutes later. Fowler set McTavish up in the right circle for a one-timer, which the rookie fired low to the short side. Gustavsson made the first stop, but could not find the rebound, which Terry potted on his second attempt to put the Ducks ahead again.

Terry has goals in three of his last four games (3-2=5) and a team-leading 11 on the season. He leads the Ducks in points, goals and assists.
Once again though, the Ducks would not be able to protect that one-goal lead. With Mats Zuccarello holding the puck in the left side corner, Anaheim lost Kaprizov skating through the slot, where he hammered a one-timer past Gibson for his team-leading 15th goal of the season.
The goal extended Kaprizov's scoring streak to 11 games (7-11=18), the longest of his career and third-longest active streak in the league.
Terry had the best chance of the overtime period, turning a Minnesota blue line turnover into a breakaway the other way, but Wild captain Jared Spurgeon made a remarkable diving play on the backcheck to break up the bid.
Zegras scored the lone shootout goal for Anaheim, with Boldy beating Gibson in the top of the third round and Gustavsson denying Strome to lock down the Wild victory.
The Ducks conclude their four-game road trip Sunday against the Winnipeg Jets.