On a five-game road trip that began with coach Joel Quenneville’s return to Chicago and ends against another former Quenneville-coached club, the Anaheim Ducks are working their way through a good test.
Anaheim will play the fourth game of the trip Saturday afternoon when it faces the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are winless at home. The 10-day sojourn will end Tuesday against the back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
The Ducks are 2-0-1 on the trip that has taken them from the Midwest to the East and South.
The Pacific Division crew scored four times in 15 minutes in the third period to win for the second consecutive game on Thursday, outdueling the Boston Bruins 7-5 behind Mikael Granlund’s career-high five-point outing (two goals, three assists) and Nikita Nesterenko’s four assists.
Granlund, Nesterenko and Troy Terry were each plus-4.
Still, Granlund said the Ducks need to fix the play in their own end.
“That was a good road win,” Granlund said. “We scored seven goals, and that’s pretty good on the road, but we’ve got to clean it up and don’t want to give up five goals in a game. At the same time, (we earned) two points and that’s all we wanted.”
Granlund, the team’s third-line center, and Leo Carlsson lead the Ducks with eight points apiece, followed by Terry with seven. Cutter Gauthier has a team-best five goals.
Meanwhile, Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov stands on the doorstop of a major milestone, but the last-place club in the Eastern Conference likely is not thinking about that.
A three-time Art Ross Trophy winner, the 32-year-old Kucherov had two assists Thursday, leaving him one point shy of 1,000. He’ll be the 101st NHL player to reach the career milestone.
The gravest concern was a third straight home loss in regulation.
Last season, the Lightning were 29-8-4 at their rink.
“Actually, I liked a lot about our game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said following the last-minute 3-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. “I didn’t like the penalties we took. Thought they were careless penalties that put us in peril in the third. And I didn’t like the last minute or the result. There were a ton of positives to take out of the game.
“But unfortunately, it’s a results-oriented game, and we didn’t get the result.”
With 54 seconds left in regulation, Chicago’s Ryan Donato netted the game-winner off a long rebound with goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy out of position after the initial save.
Donato’s fifth goal during a four-game streak sunk Tampa Bay in a match that seemed bound for overtime. The Lightning have just four points in seven games. Only the Calgary Flames have fewer with three points in eight games.
The setback was the third straight at home against the young Blackhawks over two-plus seasons, but the Lightning’s shot production — a recent problem — was up, as they led 31-25. However, they went 0-for-4 on the power play.
Kucherov is not the lone Lightning player about to reach a milestone.
Captain Victor Hedman is just one point from 800, while Brandon Hagel is two from reaching 300. Anthony Cirelli is four points short of 300.
