ANAHEIM — There’s almost never a dull moment when it comes to the 2022-23 Ducks.
Case in point: Sunday night.
The Ducks looked down and out – down two goals to the Nashville Predators when coach Dallas Eakins pulled goalie John Gibson with over two minutes to go. Getting a single goal with a goaltender pulled for an extra attacker is an accomplishment but the Ducks managed two.
The first came off the stick of Troy Terry on a nice feed from defenseman Colton White at 17:39. Once the Ducks had digested that goal, rookie Mason McTavish scored his second goal of the game, and 16th of the season, sending it to overtime with 26 seconds remaining in regulation.
In a wild 72 seconds of overtime, where Gibson stopped one breakaway but couldn’t stop another, Nashville eventually prevailed 5-4 at Honda Center. The winning goal came on a 2 on 0 with Phillip Tomasino feeding Tommy Novak at 1:12 of overtime, and Gibson had no chance on it. Novak had a three-point night, scoring twice and adding an assist. Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler had three assists in nearly 28 minutes of action.
The overtime loss salvaged a point for the Ducks but it took some of the luster away from the 11th-hour rally. Like a lot of what has gone on with the Ducks this season – some good and some bad to digest – when all is said and done.
“It’s what we’ve been doing that maybe we didn’t do the first 30 games or whatever – find different ways,” Terry said. “Even when we’ve had an off night – and didn’t come out strong- we were able to not get too far behind and find a way to get back into it. “At the end, we were sending everything at them.”
Despite the loss in overtime, Eakins was pleased with the resilience that his team demonstrated, in rallying to tie the game late and force overtime.
“At this point in the season, with where we’re at in the standings, I think it would be really easy to watch a team mail it in – and our guys refuse to do it,” said Eakins….
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