Ducks’ struggles on offense return in shutout loss to Flames
Elias Lindholm had a goal and two assists, Jacob Markstrom made 27 saves for his 200th career win and the Calgary Flames extended their winning streak to a season-best three games with a 3-0 victory Thursday night over the Ducks.
Nick DeSimone scored his first career goal 2:24 into the opening period and A.J. Greer also scored as the Flames ended a four-game road losing streak.
“I thought it was a complete game and our penalty kill, I can’t praise them enough,” said Markstrom after Calgary killed off four Ducks power plays. “There were how many shot blocks and big-time plays that they do so I think that was a big difference tonight. All four lines were rolling.”
Lukas Dostal made 41 saves for the Ducks, who had won two in a row. Ducks goalie John Gibson was available but occupied a backup role after missing a game this week following the birth of his child.
Adam Henrique scores his fourth goal in two games and the Ducks pick up their second straight win coming off five consecutive losses.
Forward Mason McTavish and defenseman Jamie Drysdale returned for the Ducks. McTavish (upper body) missed the previous seven games and Drysdale (lower body) was out the previous 29 games.
The Ducks fell to 3-14 since Nov. 15 and lost the opener of a season-long eight-game homestand.
“It was a bad night. We couldn’t make a pass, we couldn’t shot a puck, we were whiffing,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “I think it was the worst game we played all year in terms of execution. We couldn’t shoot a puck, it was squirting off our sticks. We had shots in the slot that we whiffed on.”
DeSimone was trailing the play early in the game when he took a pass from Connor Zary near the blue line and fired a shot from the deep slot past Dostal. The quick score was still a long time coming for the 29-year-old, who delivered in his 17th career game over the past two seasons.
“I finally got the first one out of the way and now everybody can stop talking about it and I can keep going,” DeSimone said.
As a defenseman, DeSimone took as much pride in the shutout, and Markstrom’s milestone, has he did his own accomplishment.
“That is what I was thinking about and I’m sure everybody was thinking the same thing,” DeSimone said. “A couple of big (penalty) kills. All the D out there, and all the forwards too, everybody stepped up.”
The Flames made it 2-0 at 7:49 of the second period after shot by the Ducks Brett Leason was blocked by Calgary’s Rasmus Andersson. Nazem Kadri sent a centering pass to Lindholm while on the forward rush and he scored his eighth of the season.
Greer scored into an empty net at 18:00 of the third period.
Markstrom made 13 saves in the first period and nine in the second on the way to his first shutout of the season and eighth win. He now has 90 wins in four seasons with the Flames after 99 with the Vancouver Canucks and 11 with the Florida Panthers.
“I didn’t know (it was close) until before the game when they told me,” Markstrom said.
The Ducks were without rookie forward Leo Carlsson for the final 9:24 after he went down near center ice with an apparent right leg injury.
“You can see when (MacKenzie) Weegar fell on (Carlsson), any sport where that happens, it’s not good,” Cronin said. “I’ll leave that up to the medical staff.”
Up next for the Ducks: Home vs. the Seattle Kraken on Saturday.
