ANAHEIM, Calif. — One game into the latest phase of his career, Ryan Strome tried to decompress as he sat at his new stall in the Ducks’ locker room and digested all that went down in their wild season opener.
Strome is a lively, high-energy guy and the nearly 61 minutes of action against the Seattle Kraken took on his personality. Check that, it was much more. It was rollicking. It was manic. It was sloppy and surreal. And when Troy Terry finished off a stunning comeback with his score 55 seconds into overtime for their 5-4 win, it was worth the price of admission.
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Can he take 81 more games of shoddy defensive play, suspect penalty killing, pinpoint shot-making, deft play-creating, monstrous saves and crazy rallies?
“I hope not,” Strome said, wearing a big smile. “Realistically, it was unreal determination and unreal never-give-up attitude. Some big moments. But we got to tighten up a little bit obviously. The first 40 minutes, the penalties and our D-zone play wasn’t the strongest.”
Nope. It was not. Not even a little bit. One game might not tell the whole story of a team, but it can provide a glimpse of what it could be. And the Ducks are a bit of a mess. But they can be a beautiful mess. The living, wildly entertaining embodiment of a Jackson Pollock painting.
Flaws are aplenty. At one point, Seattle had a 22-9 advantage in shots on goal and would finish with a 48-27 disparity in its favor. The Ducks were discombobulated in the first half of the game, with players often not on the same page and passes not connecting or so far off that there didn’t seem to be an intended target. The jolt of an opening-minute goal by Terry was muted by three straight Kraken power-play goals as Jared McCann, Andre Burakovsky and Oliver Bjorkstrand picked Ducks goalie John Gibson and his penalty kill apart. Their puck-moving defense was having issues getting out of its own end.
“They’re a really good team,” Gibson said. “They were fast. They were hunting pucks down. I think they definitely got us off guard early. Got a few penalties. Just kind of chasing the first period. They’re a good team, they can skate.
“I think we just got to work on being a little bit quicker. Tighten up the penalty kill, and we’ll be good.”
Just as the first half showed the potential for disaster, the second half of regulation displayed the excitement that is possible with a high-event club. Semblance of consistent structure in their game finally arrived and their talent — what they’ve got and what they went out and acquired — had the Kraken feeling unsteady.
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The newcomers made a difference. Strome, who started Terry’s original scoring play, finished a pass from McTavish on a rush back up ice after Trevor Zegras delivered a backcheck to break up a short-handed chance and sprung the 19-year-old rookie the other way. Frank Vatrano beat Seattle goalie Philipp Grubauer midway through the third after the Kraken’s Matty Beniers restored a two-goal lead. John Klingberg assisted on the Ducks’ two third-period strikes.
“There’s no outsiders here,” Anaheim coach Dallas Eakins said. “Our guys that have been here for a number of years are incredible human beings. They’re gracious. They’re inclusive. It’s not like these guys are brand new anymore. But playing in your first game as an Anaheim Duck and being able to contribute like that, I think it makes them feel good. Gives them a little bit more confidence and hopefully it snowballs.”
When the Ducks were last at Honda Center, they were sending off Ryan Getzlaf along with the largest crowd in years. This time, the overflow count of 17,530 that also had on hand the retired center and one of the franchise’s greatest players witnessed a new era taking shape without him.
It was Strome having a three-point night to make a great impression in his Anaheim debut. It was Klingberg already being leaned on for 25 minutes as he and Cam Fowler carried the load for an otherwise suspect blue line. It was Zegras turbocharging an active and involved crowd with his one-timer on the power play that Grubauer couldn’t handle for a 4-4 tie.
Suddenly, in some game-changing decisive ways, it was as if this reconstructed team by general manager Pat Verbeek had been playing together for years instead of weeks.
“You always want your teammates to have your respect,” Strome said. “I think we were fired up obviously. New team and everything like that. The building was rocking. That goal when Zegras scored was just, it was deafening. That was unbelievable. It was really great to hear. It was awesome.”
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While one storyline was Shane Wright playing his first NHL game in lightly-used fashion courtesy of Kraken coach Dave Hakstol, another that formed was McTavish matching Beniers as the two 19-year-olds made loud opening statements in their Calder Trophy candidacies. Beniers added an assist with his goal. McTavish had two impressive helpers, giving him multi-point games in consecutive season openers.
“You look at his numbers and his resume so far as a young player,” Strome said. “He can make plays in big moments and under pressure. He played a great game. I know as a young guy, there’s a lot of ups and downs. It’s never a smooth road. But he handles it well. He’s been through a lot. He’s mature beyond his years and he made a couple great plays.”
But they’ve also got Terry and Gibson. Eakins referred to Gibson’s 44-save effort in net as “massive” and “incredible.” And it was his final stop to foil a rare breakaway by usual Seattle stay-at-home defenseman Adam Larsson that sparked the play of the night.
Gibson coolly made a pad stop and immediately spotted Terry making a break for it. An expertly placed pass off the sideboards allowed the right wing to build up enough speed to grab the puck and get inside position on Burakovsky. And he would put a nifty rising backhand shot over Grubauer.
“If you want to talk about a guy doing everything in a hockey game, it was John Gibson tonight,” Terry said. “He was that good. He’s been that guy for us. We need to help him out first and foremost. On that play, he makes a big save on a breakaway and then springs me on a breakaway the other way.
“The guy does it all. He’s our backbone. It was fun for me too to be able to share that with him. Because I told him before we were going out there, I’d score if he stopped them. And he did his job. I was just trying to do mine.”
Gibson was stumped when it came to remembering the last time he had the key assist on a game-winning goal.
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“I just kind of saw we had numbers,” he said. “I told the guys, if you get a chance, take the chance and I’ll do my best to keep it out the other way. Nice play on Troy to score the goal. It was a good comeback.”
The Ducks can’t keep doing that if they plan on winning many more games. There is no sustainability over a large sample when it comes to being dramatically outshot and having terrible underlying metrics (Natural Stat Trick had them at 39.33 CF%, 29.84 xGF% and a 14-7 deficit in high-danger chances created and allowed). Eakins wants them to aggressively defend and check better as a group, so they don’t spend as much time falling back in their own zone. Shutdown artists they are not.
“We had a number of individuals not doing their job tonight,” he said. “And we suffered through probably 45 minutes of the game with that.”
Somehow, the Ducks managed to win with a top line that clicked as three others — particularly a third line of Isac Lundestrom, Max Comtois and Jakob Silfverberg that remains ineffective — must find their way. And they’ve got a second defense pairing in Dmitry Kulikov and Jamie Drysdale that’s shaky and a third in Nathan Beaulieu and Kevin Shattenkirk that’s a total adventure.
But that just may be these Ducks. An adventure. One chock full of thrills and spills.
“The place was rocking,” Strome said. “A lot of excitement. It was good. It wasn’t quite the performance we wanted but to get the result, especially for a sold-out crowd and home opener, it was a good feeling. It wasn’t perfect but it was a fun night. We’ll take the two and move on.”
There could be a lot of wild nights for all who show up at the corner of Katella Avenue and Douglass Road.