ANAHEIM — Aggressive offense and stellar goaltending dovetailed to earn the Ducks a 4-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils at Honda Center on Sunday night.
It was the Ducks’ third straight win, leaving them one shy of their longest streak from all of last season. Two goals off counterattacks and a nearly clean sheet for Lukáš Dostál propelled the effort.
Beckett Sennecke and Cutter Gauthier engineered goals for each other. Frank Vatrano broke the seal with his first goal of the season and Chris Kreider tacked on an empty-netter. Dostál repelled 32 pucks.
Jack Hughes tallied for New Jersey. Jake Allen made 26 saves.
Off the hop, the Ducks struck at 4:15 and 14:24. Their opening salvo also included a shorthanded breakaway for Troy Terry on which he hit the net twice and, later, the puck narrowly eluded Leo Carlsson at the side of an open cage.
The future was now as Sennecke, 19, and Gauthier, 21, executed a give-and-go play across three zones. Sennecke’s saucer pass found Gauthier, whose dish led Sennecke across the blue line and toward the net, where he roofed a wrist shot. It was the rookie’s fourth goal and yet another indicator that he’ll be sticking around all year.
Then it was Vatrano recording his first goal of the campaign — he scored 80 of them in the past three seasons — albeit with Jackson LaCombe deserving much of the credit. As the Devils attempted to break out, LaCombe pinched and accosted Devils captain Nico Hischier to force a turnover. LaCombe then dove to the ice to steer the puck to Vatrano for a no-doubt redirection.
The Ducks would extend their lead 1:54 into the second period, when Gauthier scored from an impossibly sharp angle off a shot parallel to the goal line. Gauthier leads the team with seven goals.
With 13:26 left in the stanza, Dostál made two saves in rapid succession against a New Jersey rush. His acrobatics gave the offense breathing room, and it rewarded him with support, hauling a 3-0 advantage into the third intermission.
What would have been Dostál’s first shutout of 2025-26 was broken up by a turnabout that saw the Ducks nearly score at the end of a power play before they were victimized by one of the league’s elite scorers.
Mason McTavish zipped a seam pass to Sennecke on the doorstep just as Dawson Mercer’s penalty was expiring. Sennecke’s redirection bid was saved by Allen before Timo Meier lobbed the puck to Mercer, fresh out of the sin bin, who hit Hughes for a one-timer. His 10th goal of the season moved him into a three-way tie for the league lead.
New Jersey applied heavy pressure with Allen pulled for an extra attacker, but Dostál and the Ducks weathered that storm until Kreider skated down a clearing effort to nudge the puck into the empty net with 1:54 to play, cementing the result.