- Cutter Gauthier scored his second NHL hat trick as Anaheim beat Ottawa 6-3
- The Ducks erased a 3-0 deficit with six straight goals, the last four on the power play
- Read below for the Gauthier surge, the Brossoit start and the Cozens game misconduct
Cutter Gauthier turned a dead Sunday night in Anaheim into a party.
The Ducks winger scored his second career hat trick in a 6-3 win over the Senators at Honda Center, and he got there with two goals in 36 seconds early in the third period. Anaheim scored six unanswered goals after falling behind 3-0 in the first.
Here’s the stretch that put the Ducks in front:
Ottawa looked fine for 20 minutes. Philip Tomasino tipped a Thomas Chabot shot at 6:00, Claude Giroux made it 2-0 about a minute later, and Michael Amadio scored on a breakaway at 17:37. The Senators got three goals on their first seven shots.
Then the Ducks took over in the second. Gauthier cut it to 3-1 at 1:35 off a turnover, and Judd Caulfield pushed in a loose puck at 3:33 to make it 3-2. After killing three penalties, including a 19-second 5-on-3, Anaheim went on its first power play and Caulfield tipped Tristan Luneau’s shot with 42 seconds left in the period to tie it.
Gauthier did the rest on a 5-on-3 at 1:50 of the third, going short side from below the right circle. He scored again on the ensuing 5-on-4 from nearly the same spot at 2:26. Roger McQueen added a power-play goal at 15:19 to close it out. The Ducks went 4 for 5 with the man advantage.
Gauthier has five goals over his last two games and 15 shots on net in that stretch. He kept the explanation simple.
“Trying to keep it simple, a lot of volume shooting,” Gauthier said. “The more I get pucks on the net, if they’re not going in, they’re creating good opportunities for my teammates and creating chaos.”
Leo Carlsson had three assists for the second straight game, and Luneau added two. The Ducks (6-7-1) had lost seven of their last eight coming in, and it was only their second win in nine games. They also became just the second team in franchise history to win by three or more goals after trailing by three or more. The other time was against the Hartford Whalers on Jan. 14, 1994.
Goalie Laurent Brossoit was a big part of the night too. He was recalled from San Diego on Saturday and started in place of Lukas Dostal and Ville Husso, who had both been getting lit up. Brossoit gave up three on his first seven shots, but he settled in. Ridly Greig also ran into him at one point, and the Ducks did not take kindly to it:
Coach Joel Quenneville was asked about the goalie rotation after the game. He said he sees the Ducks taking three goalies on their upcoming three-game road trip and going from there. That trip starts Tuesday in Vancouver. If you want more on where this team has been, we covered the Nick Jensen waiver move and the Carlsson offer sheet revenge win earlier this season.
There was also some late nastiness. Dylan Cozens caught AJ Greer with a late hit, Greer was slow to get up, and Cozens was handed a five-minute major and a game misconduct for interference:
The Senators head to Buffalo on Wednesday, and they’ll be thinking about how a three-goal lead turned into a loss.
