The Carolina Hurricanes look to bounce back from their first loss in nine games when they visit the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night.
Carolina (42-23-4; 88 points) will be playing the second of back-to-back games after a 7-2 loss at the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.
Anaheim (30-31-8; 68 points), in turn, is coming off a 4-1 win over the Nashville Predators on Thursday night.
The Hurricanes were never in it against the Kings, trailing 3-0 after one period and 6-0 midway through the second. Defenseman Dmitry Orlov and Mark Jankowski each scored a goal and Pyotr Kochetkov made 18 saves for the Hurricanes. It was Jankowski’s fifth goal in six games with Carolina.
“You have to turn the page,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “There’s areas where we want to keep getting better at. There’s reasons they scored as many goals as they did. We gave up too much. We created enough offense. It’s turning the page and making sure we don’t let the bad vibes out of this game leak into the next one.”
Carolina was without center Jordan Staal (lower-body injury) and defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere (illness). Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis left early in the third period with an apparent injury after being pulled down by Warren Foegele of the Kings.
“I think he looks actually all right, but I don’t want to say that because you never know when they wake up the next day,” Brind’Amour said. “But I think we avoided the worst and move on.”
The Ducks are looking to keep their faint wild-card hopes alive as they try to win consecutive games for the first time since a four-game run Feb. 2-22.
Against the Predators, John Gibson made 33 saves in his return after missing seven games with a lower-body injury.
“Amazing,” forward Trevor Zegras said of Gibson. “Mr. Orange County. He’s got that nickname for a reason. I don’t know how much time he missed, but it looked like none at all tonight. We’re always very happy to have him between the pipes.”
Zegras scored and set up a goal, Troy Terry and defenseman Jackson LaCombe also tallied and Mason McTavish had two assists for the Ducks, who had lost four of their previous five games (1-3-1).
Terry has registered points in three of his past four games and a team-best 51 points in 64 games this season. He is one shy of his fourth straight 20-goal season.
McTavish has five assists in the last three games.
Zegras gave the Ducks a 3-1 lead late in the second period.
“I thought we got it in behind them and kind of just wore them down a bit,” he said. “(Ducks Brett Leason and McTavish), they’re big bodies and they’re great on the forecheck. I just tried to help out as much as I can.”
Anaheim forward Nikita Nesterenko (illness) did not play.
Cutter Gauthier capped a two-goal performance by scoring 1:52 into overtime, lifting the visiting Ducks to a 3-2 win over the Hurricanes on Jan. 12.
