The Anaheim Ducks returned home after a brief, yet supremely disappointing one-game road trip to begin their final homestand of the season. Their last five home games of the 2025-26 season began on Friday, as they hosted the St. Louis Blues.
The Ducks entered winless in their last three games, accumulating just one point of a possible six, yet remained tied with the Edmonton Oilers atop the Pacific Division.
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Game #76: Ducks vs. Blues Gameday Preview (04/03/26)
Takeaways from the Ducks 4-3 Loss to the Sharks
The Blues came into this game five points out of the second wild card spot, but lost both of their first two California road trip games to the San Jose Sharks on Monday and the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday.
On their roster, the Ducks only have 18 healthy skaters, as Radko Gudas, Pavel Mintyukov, and Cutter Gauthier are all considered “day-to-day” but remained out of the lineup for this one.
Here’s how the Ducks lined up to start this game:
Kreider-Carlsson-Terry
Killorn-Washe-Granlund
Viel-Poehling-Sennecke
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McTavish-Gaucher-Vatrano
LaCombe-Trouba
Moore-Carlson
Zellweger-Helleson
Lukas Dostal got the start for the Ducks, and he saved 23 of the 29 shots he faced in this game. Between the pipes for the Blues was Joel Hofer, who stopped 25 of 27.
After getting off to a decent start, scoring within the first two minutes of the game, the Ducks fell victim to their own propensity for catastrophic mistakes. They were undisciplined, allowing two goals on four power play opportunities, and they suffered mental lapses against the rush, which led to several chances against Dotal.
As they attempted to claw out of the deficit they created for themselves, they began to take increasingly bigger chances, which, when not successful, gave way to outnumbered opportunities the other way.
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The underlying numbers reflect the final score relatively accurately, as at 5v5, the Ducks only generated 47.83% of the shots on goal, 53.85% of the shot attempts, and 41.99% of the expected goals.
“We had a decent start, then we gave them three goals in the first period that were definitely all our fault,” Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville said after the game. “They gave us a good education on playing a real solid team game, and we didn’t play with the urgency needed, and they’re capable of sustaining their game.”
Rush Defense: Mistakes, with and without the puck, from the top of the circles in the defensive zone to the top of the circles in the offensive zone, cost the Ducks dearly in this game. F3’s made poor reads to engage in puck battles instead of tracking back to cover for pinching defensemen.
At the same time, Pinching defensemen made poor reads to activate down the offensive wall without a necessary high F3 to cover for him. Even when the Ducks did have numbers tracking back into their end to defend a rush, sorting issues arose, as did a lack of desire to eliminate the middle lanes of the ice and increase the difficulty for off-puck attackers to crash the crease.
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Penalty Kill: St. Louis won most of their offensive zone draws while up a man in this game. They moved pucks efficiently along the perimeter and got to loose pucks on the walls. In doing so, they sustained elongated zone time and tired out the Anaheim penalty killers.
When the Ducks’ killers were running out of gas and spread too far toward the flanks, wide east-west seams opened, and the weak side forwards were late to react and close them. The Blues rarely utilized their bumper or net front attacker. Instead, they allowed the net front forward to drift to the bottom of the circle, and they allowed their bumper to drift to the flank.
Lukas Dostal: In order for the Ducks to win games like this, Dostal needs to be spectacular or at least make the saves an NHL starting goaltender is supposed to make, as he’d done for most of this season. He rarely allows soft goals where he gets beat on perimeter shots that eek through his body, but he allowed two such goals in this game, and at critical junctures.
The Blues’ second goal came on a power play in a tie game, just over halfway through the first period, which gave them a lead in a game where the Ducks had been controlling the game flow. St. Louis’ fifth goal came in the dying minutes of the second period, which ended up as a backbreaker, extending a two-goal deficit to three.
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The Ducks saw their Pacific Division lead and their games in hand evaporate in relatively short order. They have another opponent in town in less than 24 hours, who could be considered better than their record, the Calgary Flames, and the Ducks now are more desperate for a win than they’ve been in a long time. Saturday’s game against Calgary will begin at 7 PM PST.
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