TAMPA, Fla. — Jake Guentzel and Anthony Cirelli each scored twice and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Ducks 4-3 on Saturday to break a four-game skid.
Nikita Kucherov had an assist for his 1,000th career point as Tampa Bay got its first home win of the season. Victor Hedman registered his 800th career point and Brandon Hagel picked up career point No. 300.
Jonas Johansson finished with 37 saves for Tampa Bay, which ended an 0-2-2 stretch with just its second win of the season (2-4-2)
Troy Terry, Jacob Trouba and Ryan Poehling scored for Anaheim, which lost in regulation for the first time in four games. Lukas Dostal finished with 29 saves.
Cirelli scored the tiebreaking goal on the power play with his second of the night with 3:15 left in the third period with a quick shot from the low slot.
Guentzel and Cirelli scored 2:01 apart in the second period to take a 3-1 lead. Guentzel directed Brayden Point’s pass in off his skate with 7:41 left on a play Kucherov got his 1,000th point.
Cirelli made it a two-goal lead as he pounced on a rebound with 5:40 remaining. Hedman and Hagel each hit their milestones on the goal.
Poehling and Terry scored 59 seconds apart to tie it 3-3 at 8:10 of the third.
Guentzel opened the scoring for the Lightning 9:10 into the first period as a rebound found his stick in the low slot.
Anaheim tied it at 4:42 of the second after an offensive zone faceoff win landed on the stick of Trouba for a slap shot off the inside of the near post and in.
Kings forward Corey Perry will be sidelined for six to eight weeks after undergoing knee surgery.
The 40-year-old Perry was injured Friday while skating at his new team’s training complex, the team announced Saturday. The Kings will report for training camp in less than a week, and their season opener is Oct. 7 against Colorado.
Perry agreed to a one-year, $2-million contract laden with incentives to join the Kings this summer for his 21st NHL season. The 2011 NHL MVP spent his first 14 seasons with the Kings’ archrivals, the Anaheim Ducks, before moving on to Dallas, Montreal, Tampa Bay, Chicago and Edmonton.
Perry has played in the Stanley Cup Final in five of the last six seasons — but his team lost each time, including back-to-back losses with the Oilers to the Florida Panthers. He won a Stanley Cup title with the Ducks back in 2007.
Perry recorded 448 goals and 487 assists during his first 20 seasons, and he begins the new season 121st on the NHL’s career scoring list. He had 19 goals and 11 assists in 81 regular-season games for Edmonton last season before adding 10 goals and four assists in the playoffs.
The Ducks traded Trevor Zegras to the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday, ending the exciting forward’s inconsistent half-decade in Orange County.
The Ducks get forward Ryan Poehling and the 45th overall pick in the upcoming draft that initially belonged to Columbus, along with a fourth-round pick next season.
Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said he dealt away the Ducks’ charismatic former leading scorer in part because Zegras no longer fit the Ducks’ roster as they attempt to end their seven-year playoff drought.
“You start imagining lines and how you want certain players to complement each other,” Verbeek said. “We started looking at that scenario, so ultimately we made the decision to move Trevor because of that.”
Zegras is a natural center who wants to be a playmaker in the middle, but rising stars Leo Carlsson and Mason McTavish have earned those spots on Anaheim’s top two lines, which has forced Zegras to play left wing or to center a depth line. The Ducks also recently acquired longtime Rangers forward Chris Kreider, who works out with Zegras in the summer, to play left wing on one of their top two lines.
“I think he’ll be given that opportunity in Philadelphia to play center,” Verbeek said. “He’s more creative in the middle of the ice and (not) having to play from the wing. We’re fortunate that there’s Leo and there’s Mason, (but) Trevor has to kind of get pushed to the wing, and that probably doesn’t suit his best attributes.”
Verbeek also acknowledged the financial realities of the deal. Zegras will be a restricted free agent next summer, when the Ducks also will need to re-sign Carlsson, promising forward Cutter Gauthier and talented young defensemen Jackson LaCombe, Pavel Mintyukov and Olen Zellweger.
The big, speedy Poehling will become a key contributor on the Ducks’ awful special teams, Verbeek predicted. Poehling was one of the Flyers’ top penalty-killing forwards last season while scoring 31 points — just one fewer than Zegras.
Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek speaks to reporters during a news conference in June 2023.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
Verbeek still realizes his decision will rankle some Ducks supporters who won’t be happy to lose the most interesting player on a few terrible Anaheim teams in recent years. Zegras remained a fan favorite at Honda Center throughout his tenure with the Ducks, who hired coach Joel Quenneville last month with the stated goal to return to the playoffs next spring.
Zegras was the Ducks’ first-round pick in 2019, and he had two 60-point seasons early in his NHL career. He finished as the runner-up to Detroit’s Moritz Seider in 2022 for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie.
Zegras also became well known outside Anaheim for his proficiency with the Michigan goal, in which a player lifts the puck with his stick blade and wraps it into the net from behind.
But the 24-year-old Zegras struggled with injuries and consistency for the past two seasons, scoring just 47 points in 88 combined games. He had 12 goals and 20 assists in 57 games last season, increasing his production at midseason after a slow start and a 22-game absence with a knee injury.
Zegras’ commitment to defense was also widely questioned in Anaheim, although he appeared to make significant strides on that end of the ice last season.
Zegras has been a frequent topic of loud trade rumors for the past two seasons, although Verbeek claimed Monday that “there was never really anything talked about in the past as far as Trevor.”
The Flyers made another major deal with the Ducks in January 2024, with GM Danny Briere sending the disgruntled Gauthier to Anaheim for defenseman Jamie Drysdale, Zegras’ longtime friend. Both Zegras and Drysdale were drafted in the first round by the Ducks before Verbeek took over the front office.
Gauthier had a strong rookie season for the Ducks with 20 goals and 24 assists, while Drysdale scored 20 points with a minus-32 rating last season for the Flyers.
Philadelphia also has a new coach for the upcoming season with the hiring of Rick Tocchet.
Poehling had 12 goals and 19 assists in 68 games as a depth forward for Philadelphia last season. After starting his career in Montreal and getting traded to Pittsburgh for the 2022-23 season, he signed with the Flyers as a free agent and produced the best two offensive seasons of his career.
