Each has goal, assist for Anaheim; Hughes gets lone goal for New Jersey
NJD at ANA | Recap
ANAHEIM — Beckett Sennecke and Cutter Gauthier each had a goal and an assist for the Anaheim Ducks in a 4-1 win against the New Jersey Devils at Honda Center on Sunday.
Frank Vatrano and Chris Kreider also scored and Lukas Dostal made 32 saves for the Ducks (7-3-1), who have won three in a row and five of six.
“We had everybody contributing in a lot of ways,” Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville said. “I thought there was a lot of pace in the game, a lot of excitement in the game, a lot of unpredictability, some skill, (and) great saves at both ends.”
Jack Hughes scored and Jake Allen made 25 saves for the Devils (9-4-0), who were coming off a 4-1 win at the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday that ended a two-game losing streak.
“The pre-scout and everything said exactly how this team was going to play,” Devils forward Jesper Bratt said. “I think it’s just up to us to simplify early on, especially on a back-to-back. Simplify the game a little bit and play to our strength and just build momentum.”
The Ducks scored on their first shot of the game when Gauthier passed the puck ahead to Sennecke and he held off New Jersey defenseman Dennis Cholowski before lifting the puck between Allen’s right arm and body from in close for a 1-0 lead at 4:13.
“He’s growing up right in front of our eyes,” Quenneville said of Sennecke, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. “Offensively, the play he made on that goal shows that he’s capable of making high-end plays. At the same time, he has some plays that he’s starting to eliminate out of his game. Turnovers in tight areas, or tough areas, to make a play, but he has the puck a lot, which we like.”
NJD@ANA: Sennecke whips the puck upstairs in tight to break the ice
The Ducks nearly scored short-handed for the third straight game, but Troy Terry was stopped twice by Allen on a breakaway just past the midway point of the first period.
Anaheim made it 2-0 at 14:24 of the first when defenseman Jackson LaCombe stepped in front of Nico Hischier to intercept a clearing pass in the New Jersey zone. Referee Tom Chmielewski signaled a penalty on Hischier just as LaCombe dove forward in the slot to sweep a pass to Vatrano in the right circle and he scored with a one-timer.
It was the first goal of the season for Vatrano, who scored 37 for the Ducks two seasons ago.
“Frankie’s a big piece of the team,” Quenneville said. “He’s one of those guys that gets going there and the pucks will start going in for him.”
Gauthier extended the lead to 3-0 at 1:54 of the second period when he scored his Anaheim-leading seventh goal of the season on a sharp-angle shot from just above the goal line that slid under Allen’s left pad as he protected the near post.
“We were just stubborn in a sense of not putting pucks behind, playing to our strength and using speed,” Devils defenseman Brenden Dillon said. “A lot of teams, they know our offense comes from our skill and our ability to make plays, so when they take that away, we continue to force it, turn the puck over (and) we make the other team look fast, and they’re already a fast team to begin with. When we play into that, you saw what happened.”
The Devils denied Dostal his third NHL shutout when Hughes scored his New Jersey-leading 10th goal of the season off a 2-on-1 rush to cut it to 3-1 at 7:43 of the third.
“All of a sudden it looks like we have the game in the bag and, the next thing you know, it’s a 3-1 hockey game and they can make the plays,” Quenneville said. “But I still thought right until the end, we did what we had to do, which is a lot of good things.”
NJD@ANA: Hughes gets the Devils on the board in the 3rd
Kreider scored into an empty net with 1:54 left for the 4-1 final.
“The team’s winning,” Vatrano said. “No matter what you’re going through, you’ve got to be a good teammate, and no matter how many minutes you’re playing, you got to be there for the guys in this room.”
Notes: Anaheim has 15 points through the first 11 games, the most since scoring 16 points (8-3-0) in the first 11 games of the 2014-15 season. … Gauthier extended his point streak to an NHL career-best six games (nine points: four goals, five assists). … Ducks forward Leo Carlsson assisted on Kreider’s goal to extend his point streak to an NHL career-long six games (10 points: three goals, seven assists). … Kreider has six goals in his first seven games with Anaheim, including four on the power play.
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