ANAHEIM — Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill recently said that if his team were going to “climb the mountain” of the Western Conference, they’d have to scale past the Ducks.
On Sunday evening at Honda Center, the hosts demonstrated to Chicago how much closer they were to the peak, blowing away their opponents from the Windy City, 7-1.
The Ducks won for their third time in four games to maintain their division lead, and analytically, the match was even more one-sided than it was on the scoreboard. Chicago has now lost eight of its last 10 games. The ‘Hawks were playing their third game in four nights and had lost to the Kings, 6-0, 23 hours before this affair. They had taken two prior meetings with the Ducks this season.
Leo Carlsson scored two goals. Beckett Sennecke deposited a goal and assisted on Mason McTavish’s power-play conversion, with Cutter Gauthier also involved in both scores. Alex Killorn and Jacob Trouba also tallied. Chris Kreider and Ryan Strome each chipped in two assists. Ville Husso got the call yet again — the Ducks’ top two goalies remained unavailable — and came up with 19 saves.
Tyler Bertuzzi’s man-advantage marker disrupted Husso’s potential shutout. Arvid Söderblom faced a week’s worth of shots in 60 minutes, stopping a career-high 46 of 53.
The Ducks domineered a wobbly-legged opponent that was short on depth and experience, even before it was missing Teuvo Teräväinen and Nick Foligno. They bombarded the Blackhawks across the first 40 minutes, scoring 10:16 into the first period and then at the 6:40, 9:26, 16:09 and 17:23 marks of the second.
The Ducks tripled up Chicago up with an 18-6 advantage in first-period shots on goal. They also opened the scoring.
Just past the halfway mark, it was a connection between former members of another Original Six franchise, the New York Rangers. Kreider hounded Ilya Mikheyev on the forecheck, forcing a poor cross-ice pass that Trouba skated into for a thundering slapshot from above the right circle. It was his fifth goal of the year to lead all Ducks defensemen.
In the second period, the Ducks’ dam burst open offensively, leaving the two sides five goals and 31 shots apart at the second intermission. Their 27 strikes on net set a franchise record for an individual period.
The Ducks had gone without a conversion on 16 straight power plays as part of a 3-for-39 stretch, but they rectified that to make it 2-0. Gauthier’s one-timer sent Sennecke a rebound on the doorstep, which he keenly passed from the left post to the bottom of the right circle. There, McTavish glided forward to score his seventh goal of the season.
Sennecke added some more flair to the onslaught as a breakout left him with the puck in the offensive zone against three defenders. He traversed the high slot, protecting the puck from all three defenders before pivoting to deliver a laser from the right circle. His far-side goal gave him nine goals and 24 points in 2025-26, both of which led all rookies.
With Chris Paul on his way out of town, Ryan Strome resurrected “Lob City” just the same with a long, skyward pass that Killorn tracked down. He fended off Sam Rinzel to finish on a partial breakaway for his second goal of the campaign.
Carlsson pushed the score to 5-0 after a tempered rush and a drop pass from Kreider let him fling an ostensibly harmless shot from the left circle. It was deflected upon release by another No. 2 overall pick, Artyom Levshunov, and the puck knuckled past Söderblom’s left shoulder.
Then, Carlsson’s 16th goal moved him into a tie with Gauthier for the team lead just 15 seconds into the third period. A penalty carried over from the end of the middle frame, and all five Ducks touched the puck before Kreider hit Carlsson for a redirection goal with the extra man.
Bertuzzi responded with a power-play redirection goal of his own to break up Husso’s shutout with 18:20 to play. Bertuzzi’s 15 goals are respectable, but his 12 road tallies tie him for the league lead with Nathan MacKinnon.
Already having put up a touchdown, the Ducks tacked on the extra point with 1:52 left in the contest. Olen Zellweger dished Vatrano for a one-timer and his third goal and first since Nov. 8.
The Blackhawks lost their back-to-back set by an aggregate count of 13-1, while the Ducks enjoyed the spoils of their fifth seven-goal effort this season and most lopsided victory to date.