In Denver Wednesday night, the Anaheim Ducks came back to earth after a 14-game point streak in a 3-0 shellacking at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche.
Semyon Varlamov made 37 saves for the shutout win.
“I feel pretty good,” said Varlamov, who has two shutouts this season and 20 in his NHL career. “I don’t want to talk about myself, how I played, to be honest with you, because I’ve been playing up and down. It was one of the best games for us this year.”
Nathan MacKinnon, Andreas Martinsen and Shawn Matthias scored for the Avs.
“The forecheck was big and the penalty killing … Anaheim is in second place on the power play in the League, so the (penalty killing) was the key,” Varlamov said. “It’s a very dangerous team with lots of skill guys, so it was really important to play a solid game defensively.”
For the Avs, the two points were a huge boost as they pushed ahead of the Minnesota Wild for the second wild card spot in the western conference.
“We had a big challenge in front of us and I thought our response was great,” Francois Beauchemin said. “We just proved to ourselves if we play the right way we can beat any team.”
The Ducks were off their game the entire match and the loss, coupled with the Los Angeles Kings’ win in overtime, pushed Anaheim into second place in the Pacific.
“We got away from the way we play,” Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We gave up more odd-man rushes in a five-minute span than we’ve given up in the last 15 games. You can’t play up and down against a fast-skating team like these guys. We have to play with structure and have to have guys back. They got too many chances.
“It’s our job to come out here and play the right way. You can’t sit back and rely on, ‘oh, we’ve won a lot’ or ‘it’s about time’ or ‘it was due.’ Those things don’t really enter in my thought process.”
The Ducks were perhaps a bit too lackadaisical in their play and it cost them.
“These guys are fighting for their lives and played a good game,” Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf said. “We didn’t show up to play. We got to take a look at that game and figure out what we need to do better. We can handle losses; those are things that are going to happen. We’re not going to win out the rest of the season. We just have to show up to play and support each other a little bit better. I don’t think we did that tonight.”
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