Anaheim Ducks earn their first regulation win of the season

The Anaheim Ducks came into Wednesday night with the fewest home games played in the entire National Hockey League.

They also came in as the only team without a win in regulation. The hope was that they would be able to change that on Wednesday against the New York Rangers.

It didn’t get off to a great start for them as Barclay Goodrow scored an unassisted goal at 8:51 of the first period to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead.

The good news is that Mason McTavish scored on the very next shift to get the game tied at one. It was a very nice response for the Ducks, as it would have been easy to fold right there.

Later, Dmitry Kulikov scored a very strange goal just 0:39 into the second period to give the Ducks their first lead of the night. Adam Henrique and Cam Fowler picked up the assists.

Not long after that, Troy Terry scored his 8th of the season (assisted by Trevor Zegras) to make it a two-goal game for Anaheim. It looked like they were going to roll to that first regulation win, but we all knew the Rangers wouldn’t make it easy on them.

Braden Schneider scored a goal to get them within one late in the second period. He was the beneficiary of a great play made by Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin. Luckily, the third period went scoreless and the Ducks won the game 3-2.

The Anaheim Ducks desperately needed a big win like that in regulation.

Getting that big win was very important for this organization. They are very much in the conversation for being the worst team in the league, but you still have to earn some respect across the league.

Seeing the young players on the Ducks get it done was very nice. Guys like McTavish, Terry, and Zegras are the future of this team and need to keep developing. So far, so good. If they added someone like Adam Fantilli or Connor Bedard at the end of this year, they’d really be in good shape.

Another thing that helped them win the game was the play of their heroic goaltender John Gibson. He was the first star of the game thanks to his 41-save performance. He faced 43 shots in the entire game and denied all but two of them.

The season hasn’t gone well for Gibson, but the team in front of him just isn’t very good. You have to wonder if he gets moved to a contender that needs a goaltender to come in and play right away. You might be surprised how his number improve if that happened. This game was a fine example.

The Ducks are off on American Thanksgiving along with all of the other 31 teams but they are right back in action for a Black Friday matinee against the Ottawa Senators.

This team might not be good but watching their youngsters develop sure is fun. Hopefully, everyone at this one had a great time as the Ducks finally have a regulation win.