The Anaheim Ducks will look to play a more complete game as they aim to halt a six-game skid when they host the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night.
“It’s not the optimal time to be losing games in the season,” Ducks forward Alex Killorn said. “Put ourselves in a pretty good spot and kind of throwing it away a little bit here at the end. But still, plenty of games left to get those points back.”
The Ducks (41-32-5, 87 points) are in third place in the Pacific Division, three points behind the first-place Edmonton Oilers, one point behind the Vegas Golden Knights, and four points ahead of the fourth-place Los Angeles Kings with four games remaining.
Anaheim, in the midst of a five-game homestand, has dropped six games in a row (0-5-1), including a 5-0 loss to the Nashville Predators on Tuesday.
Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal made 20 saves against the Predators.
“In a lot of those games where we came back, we had really bad starts,” Killorn said. “Seems to be the opposite now. I feel like we start the games really well and then when something goes wrong, we don’t rebound like we used to.”
Cutter Gauthier paces the Ducks with 38 goals and 65 points in 73 games, while defenseman Jackson LaCombe has a team-high 46 assists in 78 appearances.
Thursday will mark the fourth and final meeting between the Ducks and Sharks this season. Anaheim edged San Jose 7-6 in overtime in the first contest on Oct. 11 before the Sharks responded with a pair of wins — 5-4 on Dec. 29 and 4-3 on April 1.
San Jose travels to Anaheim following a 5-2 loss to the visiting Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night.
“At this time of year, you’ve got to play simple, direct hockey in the offensive zone, especially, and we can’t seem to grasp that consistently enough right now,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said.
Macklin Celebrini and Kiefer Sherwood each scored a goal for the Sharks (37-33-7, 81 points), who are 5-2-0 in their past seven games.
“We have to be better. We didn’t shoot the puck enough. I took a bad penalty, and they scored on it,” Celebrini said. “We need to be better, we need to come out a little hotter, we need to shoot pucks — we passed up a lot of really good chances.”
The Sharks trail the Nashville Predators by three points in the race for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
With an assist on Sherwood’s second-period goal, Alexander Wennberg extended his career-high point streak to eight games (five goals, five assists).
With his 108th point of the season, meanwhile, Celebrini passed Jimmy Carson (107 points in 1987-88) for the third-most points in a season by a teenager, behind only Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky (137 in 1979-80) and Pittsburgh Penguins superstar captain Sidney Crosby (120 in 2006-07).
“We’ve got to move on, we’ve got to look at it, learn from it,” Warsofsky said of the loss to the Oilers. “We’ll see a team that’s another desperate team in Anaheim (on Thursday). They’ve lost a few in a row, and we’ve got to certainly have more desperation in our game.”
