Ducks play it close, but lose to Wild on Marcus Foligno’s late goal

ANAHEIM — Two nights aft a rousing triumph to unfastened their season, the Ducks rolled up their sleeves, acceptable their jaws and went backmost to work, welcoming a 2nd hard-nosed, hard-working squad to Honda Center. The Ducks person miles to skate earlier they tin assertion elite presumption successful the NHL.

But they played the Minnesota Wild connected adjacent presumption for 59:52 earlier losing, 2-1, connected Marcus Foligno’s goal. They were outplayed astatine times and outshot, but they weren’t outhustled until the precise end, erstwhile Foligno muscled location a rebound, boxing retired Cam Fowler successful beforehand of the net.

Minnesota, similar the Winnipeg Jets, plays a dense game. No situation goes unanswered.

After a scoreless archetypal period, the Ducks captured lightning successful a vessel successful the signifier of Jakob Silfverberg’s power-play extremity lone 17 seconds into the second. Silfverberg rocketed down the crystal and took vantage of an out-of-position Cam Talbot to people and springiness the Ducks a 1-0 lead.

It’s not a agelong to accidental that the Ducks person spent years moving to amended their powerfulness play, which was ne'er much of vexation than it was past season, erstwhile they clicked astatine a historically debased 8.9 percent. New adjunct coaches Geoff Ward and Newell Brown person recovered a formula, though.

Silfverberg’s man-advantage extremity was the Ducks’ 3rd successful six chances successful a small much than 4 periods to commencement the season, possibly the astir encouraging motion for a rebuilding squad astir pundits person picked to decorativeness successful past spot successful the Pacific Division successful 2021-22.

Special teams play volition nary uncertainty beryllium captious to the Ducks’ success.

Or deficiency thereof.

It’s been the lawsuit successful each of their archetypal 2 games to commencement the season. The Ducks went 2 for 5 connected the powerfulness play and blanked the Jets connected 5 short-handed situations during their season-opening triumph Wednesday. The Ducks started 1 for 1 connected the powerfulness play Friday against Minnesota.

The Ducks went to the powerfulness play precocious successful the archetypal play aft Max Jones got into a scrap with Foligno adjacent the Minnesota net. Jones and Foligno received matching warring majors and 10-minute misconducts. Foligno besides was penalized for interference.

The Wild countered Silfverberg’s powerfulness play with Kevin Fiala’s man-advantage extremity astatine 17:35 of the second, with Silfverberg penalized for hooking. The Wild misfired connected their archetypal 2 chances connected the powerfulness play. Silfverberg astir scored a 2nd goal, but his laser glanced disconnected the crossbar.

Anthony Stolarz made his play debut successful spot of John Gibson, who was injured successful the 3rd play of the Ducks’ triumph implicit the Jets. Gibson wasn’t dependable capable to dress, truthful the Ducks recalled Lukas Dostal from their AHL team, the San Diego Gulls, to beryllium the backup.

Stolarz had plentifulness of enactment from the start, with Minnesota outshooting the Ducks by 29-21 entering the 3rd period. Many of the Wild’s shots were from the perimeter and easy handled until Fiala broke escaped to Stolarz’s near and tapped a walk from Mats Zuccarello into the net.

Stolarz had nary chance.

More to travel connected this story.