The Anaheim Ducks arrive in Calgary to face the struggling Flames on Saturday night with a level of confidence beyond having won three of four games to start the season.
The Ducks are flying high with the knowledge they can pull off a victory without offensive contributions from their biggest guns.
Anaheim comes to Calgary after a decisive 5-1 win at the Winnipeg Jets on Friday in a game in which the difference makers were fourth-line players.
Judd Caulfield, Tim Washe and Jeff Malott all recorded their first career multi-point game. Caulfield, 25, scored his first NHL goal.
“They had a special night,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “They scored a couple off the rush, almost had a third one off the rush, had a couple shifts in the third with good possession and cycle time. We couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Anaheim’s Beckett Sennecke notched a pair of assists, giving him six points (three goals, three assists) in a four-game point streak to start the season. Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier, however, were scoreless on Friday.
It was a non-issue with the lower-profile players stepping up to hand Winnipeg its first regulation-time loss of the season.
“It feels great to get that first one,” Caulfield said of his first big-league tally. “It was a great play by Washe to get that puck out of the zone and (Malott) had great speed taking the puck to the net and left it easy for me to score.”
After Lukas Dostal started in goal in Winnipeg, expect Ville Husso to start at the position for Anaheim on Saturday.
The Flames, the only NHL team without a point, are trying to find any spark in the early going. Calgary, which is coming off a 7-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday, has lost all four of its games this season, by a combined score of 23-6.
As lopsided as the results have been, including the loss to Colorado, there is a belief that Thursday’s game was a step forward for Calgary.
“In the first (period), I thought we played with some energy and pace and created a lot of chances,” captain Mikael Backlund said. “It’s obviously really tough and hard and frustrating to lose again. We’ve got to learn from it, find a way to play a really solid 60 (minutes). We haven’t done that yet, and it’s time we do that on Saturday.”
As much as the Flames are struggling offensively, there is a strong thought that their fortunes will change if they improve defensively. All four losses have been blowouts, and the goaltending duo of Dustin Wolf and Devin Cooley believe they must find a way to make a difference and help their teammates find momentum.
“We’ve given up too many goals; that’s the bottom line,” Wolf said. “I think sometimes we can laugh about it, but our objective is to get points, and we’re not doing a good enough job — I’m not doing a good enough job — of helping our team do that.”
The Pacific Division rivals will meet again Tuesday night in Anaheim, Calif., in the second game of a home-and-home series.
