CALGARY, Canada — Cutter Gauthier broke a tie with 1:34 left to extend his goal streak to five games and help the Ducks beat the Calgary Flames 5-3 on Friday night for their fourth straight victory.
The Ducks are the first team since the 1991-92 Pittsburgh Penguins to score at least five goals in seven consecutive games.
Gauthier one-timed a pass from Mikael Granlund. He has scored 10 of his 12 goals this season during the five-game streak.
Jeff Malott, Tristan Luneau, Leo Carlsson and Nikita Nesterenko, into an empty net, also scored for the Ducks (9-7-1). Granlund and Beckett Sennecke each had two assists.
William Stromgren, Joel Hanley and Joel Farabee scored for Calgary. Morgan Frost and Zayne Parekh each had a pair of assists as the Flames’ five-game home winning streak ended.
Lukas Dostal started for the Ducks, but was chased after giving up three goals on 11 shots in the first period. Ville Husso, who gave up seven goals in his last appearance, came on in relief and stopped all 10 shots he faced. He improved to 2-3-0.
Dustin Wolf, making his third straight start, had 24 stops for Calgary (7-9-1).
The Flames took a 3-2 lead to the third period, but when Matt Coronato was sent off for delay of game 17 seconds in, the Ducks’ red-hot power play took advantage with Carlsson tying it at 55 seconds.
The Ducks’ Jackson LaCombe had an assist to extend his points streak to nine games, the longest in franchise history for a defenseman. He passed Scott Niedermayer (2006-07) and Oleg Tverdovsky (1999-00) on the team list.
Up next for the Ducks: vs. Pittsburgh at Honda Center on Sunday.
EDMONTON, Canada — Cutter Gauthier became the first Ducks player with nine goals over a four-game span, scoring and adding an assist in a 5-4 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night.
Gauthier — coming off consecutive hat tricks — has seven power-play goals in the four-game span. Dating to 1933-34, the only other NHL players to accomplish the feat are Dave Andreychuk (eight, Nov. 7-14, 1992) and Teemu Selanne (seven, Oct. 25-31, 2008).
Pavel Mintyukov and Beckett Sennecke each had two goals and an assist for the Ducks, and Laurent Brossoit made 23 saves. They have three in a row to improve to 8-7-1.
Connor McDavid, Evan Bouchard, Kasperi Kapanen and Leon Draisaitl scored for Edmonton. The Oilers (11-3-3) have lost two in a row.
Fourth-string goalie Matt Tomkins made 16 saves with Tristan Jarry out because of illness and both Devon Levi and Frederik Andersen injured. The Oilers became the first team in the NHL to dress a full-time emergency backup goalie, with Brett Epp sitting on the bench.
McDavid had three assists to extend his season-opening points and assists streaks to 17 games and give him an NHL-best 44 points. He’s tied for the fourth-longest points streak to start a season in league history.
Up next for the Ducks: at Calgary on Friday night.
VANCOUVER, Canada — Cutter Gauthier scored a hat trick for the second game in a row and the Ducks held on for a 5-4 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night.
Mikael Granlund added a goal and two assists for the Ducks, while Leo Carlsson put away a short-handed tally and Beckett Sennecke had four assists.
Laurent Brossoit stopped 19 shots for the Ducks.
The Ducks (7-7-1) came into the game with the league’s second-best power play (34%) behind only the Utah Mammoth and went three for three with the man advantage. Two of Gauthier’s goals came on the power play and the Ducks have 10 power-play goals on 12 chances over its last three games.
The Canucks got two goals from Jake DeBrusk, and one each from Liam Ohgren and Linus Karlsson. Elias Pettersson notched a pair of assists. Vancouver goalie Kevin Lankinen made 17 saves.
Granlund opened the scoring with a power-play tally just over four minutes into the first period. Vancouver replied on a man advantage two minutes later. Marco Rossi fed Ohgren just above the crease for the goal.
The Ducks took a 2-1 lead into the intermission when Gauthier fired a shot in on his team’s second power play of the night at the 17:07 mark of the first.
Gauthier also scored three in the Ducks’ 6-3 comeback victory over the Ottawa Senators on Sunday, and is the first player in team history with back-to-back three-goal games.
The 22-year-old American has eight goals in his last three games after going the previous nine without finding the net.
Gauthier was in the penalty box midway through the third when DeBrusk scored his fourth of the season to put the score at 5-3.
DeBrusk breathed new life into Rogers arena with just over 10 minutes left on the game clock, blasting a point shot in to cut Vancouver’s deficit to a single goal.
Cutter Gauthier had his second career hat trick, scoring the go-ahead goal early in the third period, and the Ducks overcame a three-goal deficit to beat the Ottawa Senators 6-3 on Sunday night.
Judd Caulfield scored twice, rookie Roger McQueen added another and Leo Carlsson had three assists to help the Ducks win for the second time in nine games. The Ducks went four for five on the power play.
Laurent Brossoit made 20 saves in his Ducks debut. Brossoit played his second NHL game in three seasons after being recalled from San Diego of the AHL on Saturday.
Claude Giroux had a goal and an assist as the Senators lost for the third time on a five-game trip. Thomas Chabot and Michael Amadio also scored first-period goals while Jonas Johansson made 27 saves.
After the Ducks rallied to tie it at 3 in the second period, they took advantage of a two-man advantage at 1:50 of the third when Gauthier scored from a sharp angle past Johansson. While still on a man advantage, Gauthier scored 36 seconds later for a two-goal cushion.
Up next for the Ducks: at Vancouver on Tuesday night.
Tage Thompson had three goals and two assists, Zach Benson added a goal and two assists, and the Buffalo Sabres scored six consecutive goals during a 7-6 victory over the struggling Ducks on Thursday night.
Thompson’s 10th career hat trick tied him with Alexander Mogilny and Danny Gare for the third-most in Sabres history. One night before his 29th birthday, Thompson scored twice in 15 seconds in the second period, skating around the Ducks’ inert defense for a breakaway third goal that sent a dozen hats flying onto the Honda Center ice.
Tyson Kozak, Noah Ostlund and Jack Quinn also scored and Colten Ellis made 28 saves for the Sabres, who roared back from an early two-goal deficit and then hung on to improve to 2-0-1 on their four-game trip.
Roger McQueen scored his first NHL goal and Cutter Gauthier ended his nine-game drought with two goals for the Ducks, who led 3-1 in the first period before getting blitzed 6-0 by Buffalo over the next 35 minutes.
Tristan Luneau and Beckett Sennecke scored for the Ducks (5-7-1) in the final 1:08 with Ville Husso pulled for an extra attacker, but the Sabres survived.
Captain Mikael Granlund scored and Leo Carlsson had three assists in the Ducks’ seventh loss in eight games. Husso stopped 23 shots for Anaheim, which is without injured defensemen Pavel Mintyukov and Ian Moore on its already shallow blue line.
After Granlund and Gauthier got power-play goals 57 seconds apart, McQueen put the Ducks up 3-1 with a rebound goal from the slot. The 6-foot-5 center made the Ducks’ roster out of training camp at 20 years old, but hadn’t yet scored an NHL point.
But Ostlund scored only Buffalo’s fifth power-play goal of the season midway through the first before Thompson tied it with his sixth goal. The Sabres (6-4-3) dominated the second period, and Thompson finally put them ahead with a one-timer off a faceoff win by Peyton Krebs, who had three assists.
Up next for the Ducks: vs. Ottawa at Honda Center on Sunday.
Brett Pesce scored the go-ahead goal and Jake Allen made 12 saves as the New Jersey Devils beat the Kings 3-1 on Saturday for their third straight win.
Anthony Mantha and Artemy Gritsyuk also scored for the Devils, who also beat Colorado and the Ducks on their current homestand. New Jersey has won five of six. Allen improved to 5-2-0 this season.
Scott Laughton scored for the Kings, which saw its two-game winning streak snapped. Forsberg made 23 saves.
Pesce beat goaltender Anton Forsberg at 8:08 of the third period after the defenseman found a clear lane through traffic in the Kings’ zone. Luke Evangelista and Gritsyuk assisted on Pesce’s first goal this season.
Before the game, the Devils introduced newly acquired goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. The 33-year-old Hellebuyck won 345 games in 11 seasons with Winnipeg and is a three-time winner of the Vezina Trophy.
New Jersey included goaltender Nico Daws, who won against the Ducks on Thursday, in the trade for Hellebuyck on Friday. Remi Poirier, who has yet to play an NHL game, dressed as Allen’s backup on Saturday.
Laughton scored at 15:57 of the second, driving the puck past Allen for his second goal.
Mantha tied the game about three minutes later with his third goal.
Gritsyuk scored his team-leading sixth goal into an empty net at 18:55.
The Kings had a power-play chance when New Jersey’s Timo Meier was called for tripping at 12:59 of the third but were unable to tie the game.
The Kings were coming off road wins over Washington and the New York Islanders to start its four-game trip after losing its first six games.
Up next for the Kings: at the New York Rangers on Monday.
PHILADELPHIA — Leo Carlsson scored a goal and set up the game-winner against the team that tried to sign him away from Anaheim last summer, as the Ducks overcame a two-goal deficit to beat the Philadelphia Flyers 5-4 on Saturday.
Philadelphia signed Carlsson to a five-year, $80-million offer sheet as a restricted free agent last July, only to have the Ducks match it and retain him. He scored the Ducks’ first goal at 8:38 of the second period on a pass from Cutter Gauthier, who continued to hear vitriolic chants from Philadelphia fans for forcing his way out of Philadelphia three years ago.
Carlsson later assisted on a power-play goal by Beckett Sennecke in the third period, firing a pass toward the net that Sennecke tipped past Flyers goalie Joseph Woll.
Carlsson leads the Ducks in scoring with 13 points (3 goals, 10 assists).
A.J. Greer, Judd Caulfield, and Tristan Luneau also scored for Anaheim, and Lukas Dostal made 28 saves to snap the Ducks’ five-game losing streak.
Matvei Michkov extended his point streak to five games when he scored the first of two goals for the Flyers on the same power-play opportunity. Michkov snapped a wrister through Porter Martone’s screen during a five-on-three advantage to score his seventh goal of the season. Martone followed 1:03 later to build an early two-goal lead for the Flyers.
Tyson Foerster also scored a goal and Michkov added a second goal in the third period, but Philadelphia never could draw back even, and had its three-game winning streak snapped.
Up next: The Duck begin a three-game homestand Tuesday against Vancouver; the Flyers host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.
NEWARK, N.J. — Arseny Gritsyuk and Nico Hischier scored first-period goals, Nico Daws made 16 saves and the New Jersey Devils beat the Ducks 4-1 on Thursday night.
Anthony Mantha restored the two-goal lead with 6:33 left in the third, and Jack Hughes added an empty-netter with 6.1 seconds remaining. New Jersey won its second straight to improve to 6-4-0, while the Ducks dropped their fifth in a row to fall to 4-6-0.
Gritsyuk and Hischier each scored their fifth goal of the season, with Jesper Bratt assisting on both scores. Hughes assisted on Gritsyuk’s goal.
Tim Washe scored for the Ducks on a tip at 8:20 of the third period. Ville Husso made 25 saves for the Ducks.
Gritsyuk opened the scoring at 4:38 of the first, connecting from close range off Bratt’s centering pass. Hischier scored off a rebound on a power play with 41 seconds left in the period.
Up next for the Ducks: at Philadelphia on Saturday.
NEW YORK — Sean Durzi scored 78 seconds in, Dylan Garand made 29 saves and the New York Rangers defeated the travel-weary Ducks 5-2 on Monday night to improve to 6-0-0 at home this fall.
The Rangers (7-3-1) did not pick up their sixth victory at Madison Square Garden last season until Jan. 26, their 23rd game there. They lost 27 of 41 at home on the way to missing the playoffs and finishing last in the Eastern Conference.
There is hope of a turnaround given this start, even missing franchise goaltender Igor Shesterkin for the rest of the season. Garand was making a fifth consecutive start since Shesterkin went down, and he has allowed two or fewer goals in nine of 10 NHL appearances dating to his debut last spring.
He got support early and often, with Durzi’s goal making it three home games in a row where the Rangers have scored in the first two minutes. That has only happened once before for New York, in March 1989.
The Ducks scored twice in the final 69 seconds, on goals by Nick Jensen and A.J. Greer, their first goals with Anaheim, to ruin the shutout bid.
Oliver Bjorkstrand scored twice, captain J.T. Miller and Gabe Perreault each had a goal and Alexis Lafreniere recorded two assists. Pavel Dorofeyev, the team’s most notable trade acquisition over the summer, came close on several occasions but remained stuck on two goals for the season.
Putting goalie Ville Husso in a tough spot with sloppy play, the Ducks (4-4-0) looked every bit like a group that endured a 15-hour, delay-filled travel ordeal to the East Coast from Southern California. They did not arrive at their hotel until 2:30 a.m., were on the ice for their morning skate less than nine hours later and were getting shut out until scoring twice in the final 70 seconds.
Martin Pospisil scored the tiebreaking goal with 4:22 left, Yegor Sharangovich added an empty-netter with 1:22 remaining and the Calgary Flames beat the Ducks 4-2 on Tuesday night.
Adam Klapka and Aydar Suniev added goals, and Dustin Wolf stopped 22 of 24 shots as the Flames (1-5) won for the first time this season. Beckett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson scored goals, and Lukas Dostal had 32 saves for the Ducks (4-2).
Pospisil’s decisive goal came after he took a pass from Suniev at the center circle, skated down the left side, deked Ducks defenders Tyson Hinds and Tristan Luneau by faking a shot and snapped the puck past Dostal’s short side for a 3-2 lead.
Anaheim gave up the tying goal just eight seconds after killing Calgary’s five-on-three advantage — with the help of Dostal’s four saves — for two minutes of the second.
As Sennecke (tripping) and Alex Killorn skated out of the penalty box, Flames winger Ryan Strome snuck a cross-ice pass from the outside the left circle to Suniev, who snapped a shot from the inside edge of the right circle past Dostal’s blocker for a 2-2 tie at the 8:02 mark.
The Flames took a 1-0 lead 8:32 into the first when Maksim Tsyplakov intercepted a pass in the Anaheim slot and touched a pass back to Klapka, who beat Dostal.
But the Ducks tallied twice within a 1:56 span of the first for a 2-1 lead. Sennecke stole the puck at his own blue line and beat Wolf glove-side for a breakaway goal with 7:51 left, and Carlsson’s shot from the right circle went over Wolf’s left shoulder for a power-play goal with 5:55 left.
Roger McQueen, the Ducks’ first pick in the 2025 draft, made his NHL debut after being recalled from the AHL San Diego Gulls. The 20-year-old center did not find the score sheet in 11 ½ minutes of ice time.
McQueen replaced center Ryan Poehling, who suffered a medial collateral ligament sprain that will sideline him for six to eight weeks. Ducks forward Cutter Gauthier missed the game because of a lower-body injury and is day to day.
Ryan Poehling broke a tie with a short-handed goal at 5:35 of the third period, but was injured on the play in the Ducks’ 4-2 victory over the winless Calgary Flames on Saturday night to start a home-and-home series.
The teams will meet against Tuesday night in Anaheim.
Poehling was injured when he slid into the post and Flames goalie Dustin Wolf. Poehling, who also had an assist, didn’t return to the game.
Jackson LaCombe, Frank Vatrano and Nikita Nesterenko also scored for the Ducks (4-1-0), who won a second road game in two nights after a 5-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets. The Ducks have won their first three road games to start a season for the first time.
Ville Husso stopped 27 shots in his first start of the season.
Morgan Frost and Aydar Suniev scored for Calgary (0-5-0), which started a season with five straight losses for the first time.
Matt Coronato had two assists and Wolf stopped 24 shots.
When No. 21 UCLA football faces off against No. 13 Oregon on Saturday afternoon at Autzen Stadium, defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler wants the Bruins to toe the line between playing with emotion and playing emotional.
“Big-time environments tend to bring a little extra out of your guys, and when you do a little bit extra, you tend to do too much,” Hitschler said. “Football is a hard game, but you can’t make it harder than it already is. Sometimes when you press, you tend to give up big mistakes. In the Purdue game, looking back, we definitely pressed a little bit too hard and got a little emotional. … Got to play with emotions, but we can’t play emotional. We’re in a good spot of growing and understanding that. But this is a new atmosphere, a new environment.”
Aside from the national rankings, the long history between these former Pac-12 rivals and both teams’ chances to contend for the College Football Playoff, the memory of Oregon knocking James Madison out of the Dukes’ first playoff appearance last December remains fresh for many of their players and assistants who followed coach Bob Chesney to the Bruins.
And the 51 points and 514 total yards the Ducks garnered against Hitschler’s defense left a chip on his shoulder.
UCLA safety Malik Hartford trips Purdue receiver Asaad Waseem at the Rose Bowl on Sept. 19.
(Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times)
“We’re going to continue to be aggressive and continue to find a way to create opportunities for our offense to get the ball in a positive field position,” Hitschler said. “But we got to be on top of our game because they will make you pay no matter who it is at quarterback. They are going to make you pay for your mistakes, and they’re going to find a way to create the explosives they always have, and we got to limit them.”
Although Oregon quarterback Dante Moore — who tallied 313 passing yards and five total touchdowns against Hitschler‘s defense in the playoff — was ruled out for Saturday because of a head injury suffered against USC on Sep. 26, the Ducks’ Dylan Raiola is not a typical backup.
He threw for 4,819 yards and 31 touchdowns in two years as Nebraska’s starter, then went 11 for 11 with three touchdown passes in his Ducks debut before stepping up with 289 yards and two touchdown passes after replacing Moore in a 41-27 win over USC at the Coliseum.
“When you watch him come in and complete that game and do what he did, there’s not a giant drop-off between the two of those guys. They’re both really, really good,” Chesney said. “Dylan obviously had a chance at the end of that USC game to really put himself in position to gain confidence in his teammates and teammates to gain confidence in him, and I thought he was on time. I thought he was accurate. He let those guys compete for footballs, and I’m sure there’s a lot of buy-in in that program right now in him.”
While Raiola is a proven passer, his impact is amplified by the weapons around him. In the backfield, Hitschler touted Dierre Hill Jr. and Jordon Davidson as the best running back duo in the country. While the Bruins have gone toe-to-toe with formidable tailbacks thus far, they have yet to face a one-two punch like Hill and Davidson, which could pose problems for an otherwise staunch run defense.
Raiola’s arsenal includes potent pass catchers, particularly the Ducks’ top two wideouts, Dakorien Moore and Evan Stewart, who have combined for 512 yards and seven touchdowns.
Chesney tabbed Stewart as a matchup “nightmare,” adding that Oregon is going to get him the ball in a multitude of ways by utilizing him in the slot and creating mismatches for Hitschler’s defense. Chesney also said that Dakorien Moore’s extreme speed allows him to take the top off the defense, and that the Ducks will not be afraid to take shots downfield, testing the Bruins’ secondary.
And if the Bruins let emotions get the best of them, like they did against Purdue — when quarterback Ryan Browne threw for 378 yards and two touchdowns — then it may be a long day for Hitschler’s secondary.
The Bruins’ biggest headache could be 6-foot-5 tight end Jamari Johnson, who caught seven passes for 159 yards against USC, particularly with all three of UCLA’s starting cornerbacks shorter than 6 feet.
“The tight end we faced last year, and he’s special. They do a really good job of getting into different personnel packages, and then if you go to a bigger group, they’re going to spread you out. They’re going to try to find a matchup with that tight end,” Chesney said. “He can catch everything in his general vicinity; he’s absolutely phenomenal.”
With an explosive Ducks offense set to perform in the friendly confines of Autzen Stadium, the Bruins trusting the playbook may be most important.
“Football is football no matter where we are,” fifth-year offensive lineman Hall Schmidt said. “We don’t have a magic potion for Oregon, but we definitely have ourselves, and we have the tools that we’re going to use.”
