ANAHEIM –– Lukas Dostal made 52 saves and stopped Jack Hughes’ penalty shot attempt with 2.1 seconds to play, as the Ducks held on for a 4-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Friday night at Honda Center.
Frank Vatrano scored two goals and Adam Henrique added his 18th goal of the season for the Ducks, but Vatrano also handed a dramatic penalty shot to New Jersey by deliberately knocking the net off its moorings following a scramble around Dostal.
Hughes had a goal and two assists for New Jersey, but he botched the penalty shot by turning over the puck during his tentative approach to Dostal.
Dostal’s stellar performance – his second 50-save performance of the season – gave the Ducks consecutive victories for just the third time since Nov. 15 and the second time in the 2024 calendar year.
What was decidedly less novel was that the result of the game wasn’t supported analytically – the Ducks have made a routine of both winning and losing games when the numbers say they shouldn’t – and that they lost even more bodies to injury.
On the same Thursday that they traded Ilya Lyubushkin, they lost their longest-tenured player, defenseman Cam Fowler, to a facial laceration, and their most promising young forward, Leo Carlsson, to an upper-body injury. Neither played Friday and both were deemed day-to-day. Troy Terry did return to the lineup after a two-game absence, but Mason McTavish exited the game in the first period and did not return. They have been without last year’s leading scorer, Trevor Zegras, since Jan. 9.
In addition to Vatrano and Henrique, Max Jones notched a goal and an assist. Radko Gudas had an assist and a fight to answer for the booming hip check he delivered to Hughes.
Hughes scored a goal and assisted on Timo Meier’s tally as well as Tyler Toffoli’s. Toffoli added an assist while rookie Luke Hughes, Jack’s brother, contributed two helpers. Nico Daws stopped just 10 of 14 shots before being relieved by Akira…
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