SAN JOSE — No one will blame the Ducks if they feel a little shell-shocked following this one.
Macklin Celebrini tied the score with less than two minutes to play then assisted on Alexander Wennberg’s winning goal with 31 seconds left to complete a four-point game as the San Jose Sharks stunned the Ducks, 4-3, on Wednesday night at SAP Center.
“The guy who is a pretty special player who tied it,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville told NHL.com of Celebrini. “Scored a nice goal, and they got another one right after. We’ve done that all year. I can imagine how it feels, and now I know how it feels to give up something like that, a lead in the third. A terrible loss, and it put us in a tougher spot for sure.”
The Ducks (41-29-5, 87 points), who lost their third straight game, remain atop the Pacific Division, two points ahead of second-place Edmonton (38-28-9) with seven games left in the regular season.
With two goals and two assists, the 19-year-old Celebrini now has 40 goals and 105 points this season, moving him past Erik Karlsson (101 points in 2022-23) for the second-highest single-season point total in franchise history behind Joe Thornton’s 114-point effort in 2006-07.
Will Smith had a goal and two assists for the Sharks (35-31-7, 77 points), who have won three in a row following a six-game skid (0-5-1) and sit one point behind the Kings (with a game in hand) in the race for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference playoffs. Yaroslav Askarov made 28 saves.
The Sharks pulled Askarov for the extra skater, and Celebrini scored with a wrist shot from just above the left circle past a Wennberg screen to tie the score with 1:39 left.
“(Wennberg) took the whole thing away, like the goalie couldn’t see anything, and I had the whole side of the net,” Celebrini told NHL.com. “That’s not going in if he’s not in front.”
Wennberg then scored the game-winner from the high slot off a feed from Celebrini, his wrist shot beating Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal over the glove.
“Good entry, kind of like a little bit of a broken play. (Celebrini) gets the puck and just kind of finds me wide open right there,” Wennberg told NHL.com. “Nice shot, but the play, how they develop, it all worked out really nice.”
Ryan Poehling, Alex Killorn and Troy Terry scored, and Drew Helleson added a pair of assists for the Ducks. Dostal made 16 saves and also got his first assist of the season on Poehling’s goal.
After an early push by the Ducks, the Sharks scored on their first shot while on a power play to take a 1-0 lead at 4:37 of the first period.
Celebrini received a pass at the red line, brought the puck into the Ducks’ zone and behind the net before coming out the other side and feeding Smith for a one-timer from the left hashmarks.
The Ducks couldn’t capitalize on three power plays in the first 12 minutes, but they scored an even-strength goal to tie it 1-1 at 17:47 of the first.
Poehling brought the puck down the right side and San Jose defenseman Dmitry Orlov tried to pinch Poehling against the wall, but he squeezed by, carried the puck into the right circle and scored with a wrist shot.
The Ducks moved ahead 2-1 at 14:59 of the second.
Helleson received a pass above the right circle just as Killorn pushed off the wall on the opposite side to get behind San Jose forward Ty Dellandrea. Helleson slid a diagonal pass to Killorn as he cut through the left circle, and Killorn redirected the puck into the net.
The Sharks scored 27 seconds into the third. After Ducks defenseman Ian Moore failed to clear the puck, Smith set up Celebrini for a one-timer from the right circle that tied it 2-2.
Terry put the Ducks back ahead, 3-2, at 4:04 of the third. Dmitry Orlov tried to make a pass to the middle of the ice, but Terry intercepted the puck. After his initial shot was stopped, Terry put the rebound in on a sharp angle from the bottom of the right face-off circle.
“We talk about managing those games, I don’t know. We will have to look at it,” Terry told NHL.com. “I didn’t really feel like we mismanaged it; they got some really talented players over there.”
NOTES
The Ducks played without leading goal-scorer Cutter Gauthier, who suffered an upper-body injury during Monday night’s 5-4 loss to Toronto. … Nathan Gaucher made his NHL debut for the Ducks. He was selected 22nd overall by the Ducks in the 2022 draft. … Celebrini has 17 games this season with three or more points, second among teenagers in NHL history only to Wayne Gretzky, who had 19 in 1979-80. … San Jose now has a 2-1 lead in the four-game regular-season series between the teams.
McQUEEN SIGNS AMATEUR TRYOUT OFFER
Ducks lottery pick Roger McQueen moved a step closer to flying with the flock on Wednesday after the Providence College freshman signed an amateur tryout offer that will allow him to join the Ducks’ top minor-league affiliate.
McQueen, a skilled 6-foot-6-inch center, will report to the San Diego Gulls imminently now that the Friars were eliminated by Quinnipiac in the NCAA tournament.
“It is exciting to welcome Roger to our organization to play professional hockey after a strong freshman season at Providence,” Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said in a statement. “Roger will gain valuable experience playing additional games in San Diego, which will be an important step in his development.”
McQueen, the 10th overall selection in last June’s draft after his stint with the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings, had 27 points in 36 games with a 55.1% faceoff percentage at Providence. He was one of the first prospects to take advantage of the new CHL-NCAA parameters that allow Canadian junior players to cross over into the U.S. college ranks. Other top picks like Boston College’s James Hagens, who signed an ATO with the Boston Bruins last month, and Gavin McKenna, the Penn State star expected to go No. 1 overall this year, also made that leap.
One Hall of Fame defenseman and Stanley Cup champ described the arrangement as one that lets players develop as both competitors and people, giving them “the best of both worlds.”
“Back in my time, you had to make that decision when you were 15 or 16 years old. If you wanted to play in Canadian hockey, in my case the (OHL) with Peterborough, you had to make that decision at a young age,” said former Ducks star Chris Pronger, who was recruited by top college programs like Maine, Michigan and North Dakota. “Whether you were sure or not about it being the right or wrong decision, you might make a mistake at that young age.”
McQueen was part of one of the more memorable draft moments in recent years, when after the Ducks selected him he was whisked away from Downtown L.A. to Downtown Disney, taking a helicopter ride to “the happiest place on earth” immediately after shaking hands and taking photos as a top-10 pick.
“Everything that went on there was crazy, it was so cool. It was something I’ll never forget, those first 72 hours,” McQueen said.
McQueen slipped in the draft – he had been projected by many to go in the top 5 earlier in his career – due to a back injury that limited him to just 17 games in his draft year. No longer taking long bus rides through rough weather and now having access to state-of-the-art training, McQueen didn’t miss a single game at Providence this season. In addition to traditional strength building and injury prevention, McQueen has integrated yoga and pilates into his regimen.
“I got a misdiagnosis back when I was in my second season with Brandon, around February, near the playoffs. They had said it was just disk issues – they thought there were two bulging disks – so I rehabbed it (accordingly), which didn’t end up doing much,” McQueen said. “Then I figured out later that it was a fracture. I had two really good doctors treating that and fixed that up. Since then, I’ve been doing tons of core work to stabilize those muscles to make sure that can’t happen again.”
Given free-agent addition Mikael Granlund’s age and the recently re-signed Mason McTavish’s inconsistency, McQueen’s development behind top center Leo Carlsson might have gone from luxury to necessity. He plays a rangy, rugged game that has been compared with one of the great Ducks in franchise history.
“I’ve always said Ryan Getzlaf for a player comp, so that’s pretty cool with him being such a veteran and all-time great here,” McQueen said.
UP NEXT
The Ducks return home to host St. Louis on Friday at 7 p.m.
Andrew Knoll contributed to this story.