ANAHEIM — The pendulum has swung dramatically for these Ducks before and it did so over the course of 65 minutes in a game they led 5-2 but ended up losing in humiliating fashion.
They were upended by the Vancouver Canucks, 6-5, on Tuesday night at Honda Center, with Vancouver snapping a 10-game freefall and the Ducks losing for the sixth time in seven outings.
This is the same franchise that last season followed a nine-game losing streak with a seven-game surge and 12 wins in 14 games, and also a seven-game string of wins with three decisive defeats. But few individual contests compared to Tuesday’s vomitous rollercoaster ride.
A.J. Greer potted a pair of goals for the Ducks. Leo Carlsson and Jeff Malott registered a goal and an assist apiece. Beckett Sennecke converted on the power play. Jackson LaCombe had two primary assists and a secondary one. Sam Colangelo added two helpers. Lukáš Dostál repelled 27 shots.
Liam Öhgren scored a goal off a defender’s skate and Brock Boeser put one in off his own torso for Vancouver. Boeser also set up Jamie Oleksiak’s late marker. Jonathan Lekkerimäki tallied twice with the goalie pulled to bring the Canucks within one and then to send the game to OT, where he helped set up Filip Hronek’s winner. Hronek added an assist and center Elias Pettersson chipped in two. Leevi Meriläinen made 18 saves.
With 2:11 left in overtime, disaster turned to catastrophe when Sennecke took a high-sticking penalty and then Alex Killorn took another minor with 26.6 seconds on the clock. That set the stage for Hronek’s bullet of a game-winner with 10.4 seconds to play.
The final 20 minutes seemed largely academic but saw the Canucks strike three times: off an Oleksiak snap shot and then it was the Lekkerimäki show, 6-on-5, as he scored unassisted off Greer’s giveaway (17:14) and then off a snap shot above the left circle (18:03).
Before that, Boeser skated into an airborne puck to direct it in at 11:40 and Greer got his second goal 43 seconds later, getting a piece of Colangelo’s shot attempt.
Greer has four goals on the season, all of which have come in his past five appearances.
In the second period, the Ducks earned breathing room, at even strength at the 18:24 mark and on the power play 2:40 earlier. That was after the combatants exchanged goals in a 30-second span, with Vancouver drawing even at 6:36 and the Ducks reclaiming the lead at 7:06.
Carlsson made it 4-1 after Tristan Luneau’s intrepid zone entry set up a shot for Malott, whose far-side rebound came directly to Carlsson for his fourth goal of 2026-27.
Vancouver’s league-worst penalty kill took the ice for the first time, surrendering a goal just 28 seconds into its infraction. Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier dazzled with a give-and-go play that allowed Sennecke to tip home his team-leading seventh goal of the campaign.
Malott validated the decision to bump him up to the second line by igniting a scoring sequence with a puck recovery on the forecheck and finishing it with a tap-in off a LaCombe feed. It was Malott’s second goal as a Duck.
Öhgren had tallied when his pass intended for Zeev Buium hit the skate of Tristan Luneau and banked into the net.
The Ducks killed the game’s first penalty and scored its first goal, 15:52 after the opening draw, and off their own fortuitous bounce for an own goal.
LaCombe zipped a diagonal pass from the left side of his own all the way to the offensive blue line, where Greer received it on the right side. He showcased his strength, fending off defenseman Elias Pettersson and then pivoting to send a centering pass toward Tim Washe. It didn’t reach Washe, but the puck deflected in off defenseman Hronek’s stick.
More to come on this story.