Cutter Gauthier scores twice as Ducks beat Rangers

NEW YORK — On an emotional night for two of their teammates, Cutter Gauthier and Lukas Dostal made sure the Ducks came out on top.

Gauthier scored the go-ahead goal six minutes into the third period and got his second on an empty-netter, Dostal stopped 26 of the 27 shots he faced, and the Ducks beat the New York Rangers, 4-1, on Monday night to end a two-game losing streak.

“I thought we had really more of a direct way of playing tonight. We played a little simpler,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville told NHL.com. “We talked about, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get some points here.’ You lose two games, it’s almost like you’re giving away everything. Every game is critical because everybody is in the same boat, but it was a very big response from our team and happy for the guys coming back here as well.”

The game marked the return of Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba to Madison Square Garden after the Rangers traded both players to the Ducks since the start of last season.

Kreider’s 13-year career with the Rangers ended when he was traded to the Ducks on June 12, and Trouba’s tenure with the Rangers ended when he was shipped to Anaheim on Dec. 6, 2024.

Kreider received a lengthy video tribute with 11:03 left in the first period and Trouba received a shorter tribute during the next timeout with 9:35 left. Both players waved to the crowd while fans applauded.

“It was a little weird,” Kreider told NHL.com. “It took me a couple of shifts to remember the guys in blue weren’t my teammates. It was just, I think, a weird game. Maybe next time it’ll feel a little more normal. I had a little adrenaline dump in the first period, a little bit of tunnel vision and nerves like my first game here in New York.”

Gauthier’s first goal with one second left on a power play came off a perfectly placed pass from rookie Beckett Sennecke. Sennecke snuck past Rangers captain J.T. Miller to carry the puck into the offensive zone on the right side. He sent a pass across to Gauthier, who scored from above the left hash marks with a shot past Igor Shesterkin’s blocker.

“The pass (to me) was a little in front and I kind of just poked it ahead,” Sennecke told NHL.com. “I just kind of looked up and saw Cutter, passed it to him on his tape and he did the rest. I said it to him, (but) there’s not many people in the world that can shoot a puck like he can. It’s pretty incredible to watch. It’s on and off his stick in a heartbeat. It’s like rising. It’s a bullet.”

Gauthier said he worked on his shot during the morning skate with Julien Tremblay, who is the Ducks’ NHL player development coach.

“I wanted to work on getting shots through defensemen,” he told NHL.com. “I feel like a lot of this season I’ve been getting shots off the rush and I’m either whiffing them or hitting defensemen in the legs. The biggest thing is to get it on and off quick and try to be as accurate as you can. Beckett made a really nice pass to me and I just tried to shoot it.”

Defenseman Jackson LaCombe scored the Ducks’ first goal shorthanded in the second period, putting home a rebound after Jacob Trouba sprung Ryan Poehling up the ice late in the Rangers’ 5-on-3 power play.

“‘Poehls’ took it to the net and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Well, OK,’” Quenneville told NHL.com. “Then we’re still fighting for the rebound and I’m thinking, ‘OK, what happens if it goes the other way?’ But we got lucky. It was one of those plays you’ll take. Not very often that situation happens.”

Dostal was brilliant at the other end of the rink, at one point making a toe save on Miller and sliding over to deny Vladislav Gavrikov immediately after.

The Ducks (20-12-1) got a goal in the final seconds from Pavel Mintyukov and celebrated with Trouba and Kreider.

Matthew Robertson scored the only goal for the Rangers (16-14-4), who have lost 12 of their 16 home games this season, late in the second period. Robertson’s shot from the top of the zone deflected off Frank Vatrano’s stick and bounced up and over Dostal. The goaltender attempted to steer it away, but the puck banked off his stick.

Officials immediately waved it off for a high stick but determined the goal counted since replays showed Trocheck swinging at the puck in front of the crease without making contact.

New York was without center Mika Zibanejad, whom Coach Mike Sullivan scratched for breaking a team rule by missing a meeting. Big winger Matt Rempe took Zibanejad’s spot in the lineup, back after he missed 24 games since getting injured in a fight on Oct. 23.

UP NEXT

The Ducks wrap up their five-game Eastern Conference road trip against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday at 4 p.m. PT.