At some point, the games of a losing team simply don’t matter anymore, aside from for player-development purposes. That’s when talk shifts away from “playoff” hopes and towards “we’re spoilers” reality.
Friday night, the Ducks had that chance, as they took on the visiting New York Rangers, who, coming into the night, were just a point out of the playoffs, but three positions out, as they would lose a tie-breaker with the New York Islanders, ahead of them but tied in points. To put it simply, the Rangers could go to bed in the second wildcard spot by a point with any kind of win.
Not that the Rangers were giving themselves much help, being 3-6-1 in their last ten games. The Ducks, meanwhile, were sitting at 70 points, 12th in the West, though they have been 4-5-1 over the past ten, including a 6-2 win at home Wednesday over the Bruins.
Anaheim does have some people going, most notably Leo Carlsson, who had his third, two-goal game of the year and his first shorthanded goal versus Boston. But in general, they’ve proved as the season has wound late that they aren’t quite ready to play with the big clubs. What about that spoiler role, though? They may have seized it, but the story of this game is more like that New York conceded it. It here equals a bunch of things: a point, the game, the potential playoff seeding.
New York didn’t look all that motivated in the early going. The Ducks supplied the action instead, playing a wide open-game and pressing in the offensive zone. Then the Rangers woke up, and one tricky play later, it was 1-0 for the visitors. Tricky? Artemi Panarin skated the puck into the zone and shot purposely off the end boards for Adam Fox to pick up and backhand over Lukas Dostal.
Goalie Igor Shesterkin then kept the Rangers in it as Anaheim got three chances down the slot in a row, with a save on Cutter Gauthier, then a beautiful spread-eagle on Alex Killorn and finally a third save.
The middle part of period one saw several set-ups by the Ducks, then by the Rangers. It was feeling like anybody’s game. Then the Ducks got a shorthanded goal, their second in two games. It was all Killorn, as he broke out of the zone and went in on a break going right to left. He shot low, kept his wits about him as he passed the goalie, and picked the rebound out of the air. Exciting.
But the period ended on a depressing note as Radko Gudas went for a check and missed in the slot, allowing JT Miller to scoop up a puck and put it in just as the second period was winding its final ticks down.
Period two started out poorly, too, for the Ducks, as New York scored at the fourteen-second mark. Then the two teams traded chances, with first Carlsson going on a near break that the netminder saved and then the Rangers working a jam play down low with all kinds of guys down in front of the net.
Shortly after that, Mason McTavish wheeled around a fired a puck from the deep slot. Shesterkin made yet another leg save. It seemed like the game was just going to wind out, Rangers taking it. An hour of clock time later, the Ducks were celebrating an OT win on the back of a three-goal third period performance. What happened? The Rangers still aren’t entirely sure.
The Ducks got the game to 3-2, and the Rangers pulled away again. There were about fifteen minutes to play when they made it 4-2.
With just more than five, Cutter Gauthier made it 4-3. The goal came off the rush and a rebound, as so much did on this night. Gauthier was following the play and shoveled in the rebound. Another soon followed, by Owen Zellweger, a beautiful shot that came off a drop pass and was launched up under the bar. The goalie could have stopped it with his head, to his peril. On the other hand, a stand-up goalie would have saved it harmlessly. Maybe someone should go back to that, given how many goals are scored right under the bar these days.
And so what should not have happened, did. The game went to OT. The Ducks trio of Carlsson, Jackson LaCombe, and McTavish passed and passed up shots, but then put the puck in off a doorstop placement of McTavish. It was his 20th of the year.
The Rangers dressing room, by all accounts, was despondent. Not to beat the Ducks! Not to take advantage of a night where the opponent took 14 minutes in minor penalties (NY had eight). Not to get two points and sole possession of a playoff spot with Montreal having lost.
Missed opportunity all around, but a game full of action and suspense. Did the Ducks play spoiler? In the technical sense, yes. But more than that, they played hard from behind and won a hockey game. What the win did to the hopes of the other team is largely irrelevant to them.
