Ducks blow 3-goal lead in overtime loss to Canucks

ANAHEIM — The pendulum has swung dramatically for these Ducks before but seldom if ever like it did over the course of 65 minutes in a game they led 5-2 but ended up losing in humiliating fashion.

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They were upended by the Vancouver Canucks, 6-5, on Tuesday night at Honda Center, with Vancouver halting a 10-game freefall and the Ducks losing for the sixth time in seven outings.

This is the same franchise that last season followed a nine-game skid with a seven-game surge and 12 wins in 14 games, as well as a seven-game string of wins with three decisive defeats. But no individual contest compared to Tuesday’s vomitous rollercoaster ride.

“That was a terrible loss,” Coach Joel Quenneville said. “We were up 5-2. We were in, not a pretty good spot, we should have sealed the win.”

A.J. Greer potted two goals for the Ducks. Leo Carlsson and Jeff Malott registered a goal and an assist apiece. Beckett Sennecke converted on the power play. Jackson LaCombe turned in two primary assists and a secondary one. Sam Colangelo had two helpers. Lukáš Dostál repelled 27 shots.

Liam Öhgren scored a goal off a defender’s skate and Brock Boeser put one in off his own torso for Vancouver. Boeser added two assists to equal center Elias Pettersson’s pair. Jamie Oleksiak hit pay dirt before Jonathan Lekkerimäki tallied twice with the goalie pulled to bring the Canucks within one and then to send the affair to OT. There, he helped set up a winner for Filip Hronek, who also chipped in an assist. Leevi Meriläinen made 18 saves.

With 2:11 left in overtime, disaster turned to catastrophe.

Sennecke took a high-sticking penalty, and then Alex Killorn took another minor with 26.6 seconds on the clock. That set the stage for Hronek’s bullet of a game-decider, a one-timer with 10.4 seconds remaining.

“[We had] no quit,” said Boeser, who assisted on Hronek’s goal. “We felt like we were getting some looks, so we just kept going, and we kept finding the back of the net.”

The final 20 minutes were ostensibly academic but soon saw the Canucks strike three times late: off an Oleksiak slapper (12:54) before it was the Lekkerimäki show, 6-on-5, as he scored unassisted off Greer’s giveaway (17:14) and then off a snap shot from above the left circle (18:03).

“We’ve got to be smarter, we’ve got to play smarter as a team, and we’ve got to do the little things right, especially at those times in the game where they’ve got to manufacture [offense],” said Quenneville, who described some of his team’s play as careless and senseless.

Before that, there was a second rapid-fire exchange of goals. Boeser skated into an airborne puck to direct it home at 11:40 and Greer notched his second goal 43 seconds later, getting a piece of Colangelo’s shot attempt.

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Greer has four goals on the year, all of which have come in his past five appearances.

In the second period, the Ducks earned breathing room, at even strength at the 18:24 mark and on the power play 2:40 earlier. That was after the combatants swapped goals in a 30-second span, with Vancouver drawing even at 6:36 and the Ducks reclaiming the lead at 7:06.

Carlsson made it 4-1 after Tristan Luneau’s intrepid zone entry set up a shot for Malott, whose far-side rebound came directly to Carlsson for his fourth goal of 2026-27.

Vancouver’s league-worst penalty kill took the ice for the first time, surrendering a goal just 28 seconds into its infraction. Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier dazzled with a give-and-go play that allowed Sennecke to redirect his team-leading seventh goal of the campaign, at 15:44.

Malott validated Quenneville’s decision to bump him up to the second line. He ignited a scoring sequence with a puck recovery on the forecheck and finished it with a tap-in off a LaCombe feed. It was Malott’s second goal as a Duck.

Öhgren had gotten Vancouver on the board when his pass intended for Zeev Buium hit the skate of Luneau and banked into the net.

The Ducks drew first blood, 15:52 after the opening draw, and off their own fortuitous bounce for an own goal.

LaCombe zipped a diagonal pass from the left half of his own end all the way to the offensive blue line, where Greer received it on the right side. Greer showcased his strength, fending off defenseman Elias Pettersson and then pivoting to send a centering pass toward Tim Washe. It didn’t reach Washe, but the puck deflected in off Hronek’s stick.

It was an auspicious start that gave way to a calamitous result.

“That’s what happens in this league if you don’t finish the game the right way, and it’s unacceptable,” LaCombe said.

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