Cutter Gauthier provides late flurry as Ducks edge Flames in OT

ANAHEIM — A slog turned into a sprint when the home stretch of Wednesday night’s match at Honda Center let the offensive fireworks fly.

The Ducks rallied from two goals down to vanquish the Calgary Flames, 4-3 in overtime, and potentially extinguish the visitors’ playoff hopes.

They have won two straight and are now back at .500 (35-35-8, 78 points) with four games remaining on their schedule. Calgary (37-27-14, 88 points) remained six points back of the final Western Conference wild-card playoff berth, a daunting distance, especially since the Minnesota Wild defeated San Jose, 8-7, in the return of both Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek.

Cutter Gauthier scored two goals for the second straight game, and this time they were the tally that forced overtime and the OT winner. Both of those massive markers were set up by Leo Carlsson. Trevor Zegras and Frank Vatrano also scored. Ville Husso made his second start since arriving via trade from Detroit, making 36 saves in his first victory as a Duck.

Captain Mikael Backlund, Yegor Sharangovich and Matt Coronato each had a goal for Calgary. Backlund added an assist and Joel Hanley chipped in a pair. Rookie Dustin Wolf stopped 19 shots.

“It’s awesome. We’ve done it all year. We knew that was a big game for that team, so we just had to bear down on them,” said Vatrano, whose 21st goal was his first in 14 games.

Gauthier trailed a rush behind Carlsson and Olen Zellweger, receiving the puck and picking his spot, high to the far side, to complete the Ducks’ ninth third-period comeback of the campaign 71 seconds into the extra session. Carlsson pushed the pace with swift strides and Gauthier provided the thunder to his lightning.

“Every time I get on the ice, I want to impact the game in a good way,” said Gauthier, who now has 18 goals this season.

In the third period, a contest that had just one goal through almost 52 minutes saw five scored in the span of 4:23 between the 11:49 and 16:11 marks.

Zellweger, who has six points in four career games against his hometown Flames, set up Vatrano alone in the right circle for a no-doubt one-timer at 16:03. Just eight seconds later, a center-ice faceoff win set the wheels in motion for Carlsson to connect with Gauthier on the left side. Gauthier, who had been aggressive and dangerous throughout the evening, had also rung the post with a shot with just under six minutes to play.

“Cutter’s finally figuring out how good of a skater he is, and Leo knows how dynamic he is and how much he can change the game,” Vatrano said.

Coronato appeared to have sealed the Ducks’ fate when he swiped Backlund’s rebound in for his third goal and fifth point of the season series (which Calgary won 3-1), but the Ducks had other plans.

Calgary earned its second edge of the night with 6:16 on the game clock. It was the sort of simple, direct play that the Ducks have tried to emulate at times, with multiple shot attempts and recoveries. The last one, a low-flying bid off Husso’s pad by Joel Farabee, created a backhanded putback goal for Sharangovich.

The Ducks finally solved Wolf with 8:11 left in regulation.

First, Mason McTavish’s forecheck pressure created a puck recovery from former Flame Oliver Kylington. His saucy seam pass found Zegras near the right faceoff dot, where he sold a pass to both the goalie and defenseman Jake Bean, before promptly placing a precise wrist shot above Wolf’s shoulder on the near side. Zegras has 12 goals in 2024-25 and 10 points in his past 10 games.

“It just was a sloppy, ugly game, but a tremendous amount of credit goes to our guys for coming back when it was 3-1,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “When (Zegras) got the goal to make it 1-1, that kind of took some of the heaviness out of the game for us. To give up those two goals close together, it was shocking, but the bench was positive and everyone was supporting each other.”

In the second period, perhaps the hosts’ best chance of the frame came right at the end. Gauthier’s intrepid foray shorthanded saw him take on Backlund and Rasmus Andersson and then set up Isac Lundeström at the back post for a shot that was saved by Wolf.

Husso was solid again, making stops on sterling opportunities for Andersson and Nazem Kadri.

But at 14:18, Calgary broke a scoreless tie off an effort that started and ended with Backlund. He stole the puck back in the Ducks’ zone following a pinch by Hanley, initiating a sequence that culminated in Backlund redirecting MacKenzie Weegar’s shot past Husso after getting position on Carlsson.

Both the volume and quality of chances favored Calgary in a first period during which it doubled up the Ducks in shots on goal, 14-7.

The Ducks killed two penalties and two more in each of the final two stanzas. They went 6 for 6 on the penalty kill in consecutive games (though they are 2 for their past 30 on the power play). In all, they have quieted a respectable 24 of 28 short-handed situations in the past two weeks.

“Guys did a really good job on the PK,” Husso said. “For a goalie, you know where the shots are coming and that makes it easier. Six kills is pretty good.”

He added: “It’s one of those crazy games, but we were happy to get the win.”