Ducks cling to first place with crucial weekend matchups ahead

If a loss left a bad taste in the Ducks’ mouths, there’s nothing like a pair of tasty matchups to clean their palate.

Not that the Ducks are licking their lips at an upcoming Western Canada challenge, but they will gladly forget about an atypical loss to the Winnipeg Jets and dive back into the Pacific Division fray with games at the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday and Calgary Flames on Sunday.

The first-place Ducks are one point ahead of Edmonton, and Calgary and the San Jose Sharks are bunched closely behind in standings that change daily, often within hours.

“A lot of moving parts every night,” Ducks center Antoine Vermette said by phone on a mandatory day off Friday. “But we don’t look at it too much. I keep an eye on it because it’s fun and it’s interesting. But it’s not the main thing. How we play is more important.”

The Ducks have beaten the “it’s-about-us drum” consistently and it has produced nine wins and points in 11 of their past 12 games. They had a rare late breakdown Thursday in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Jets in which they lost a 3-1 lead and dropped to 2-9 in games that end in overtime. Before the loss, the Ducks were 30-2-1 when leading after two periods.

It was a minor misstep in a methodical month of winning, and Vermette and the Ducks take it that way.

“It’s not the way you want to do things,” Vermette said. “That being said, you look at the big picture. We left one point on the table. That should have been ours. We’ve been doing something good for a little while. You put that in the past and you move on.”

Saturday is the regular-season series finale against the Oilers and NHL scoring leader Connor McDavid. Overshadowed by McDavid is linemate Leon Draisaitl, who has five goals in four games against the Ducks this season, including an overtime goal. McDavid and Draisaitl each have nine-game point streaks.

Said Vermette of the duo, “They’re complementing each other really well.”

NEXT UP

AT EDMONTON

When: Saturday, 7 p.m. PST.

On the air: TV: Prime; Radio: 710

Update: McDavid is the first Oilers player to record 91 or more points since Doug Weight in 1995-96 and first NHL player 20 or younger with 90 points since Steve Stamkos in 2009-10. … Defenseman Clayton Stoner was not expected to join the Ducks from his minor-league conditioning assignment, a team spokesman said. The Ducks reassigned Ondrej Kase. …The Ducks signed Michigan Tech freshman goalie Angus Redmond to a three-year entry-level contract. Redmond, 21, ranked third nationally with a 1.85 goals-against average and led the Huskies to a Western Collegiate Hockey Assn. championship.

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