WARNINGSJS
Rush defense leaked all night
Gave up 29 rush shots worth 2.03 xG (5 goals) — transition gaps were there every period.
Tighten neutral-zone structure and keep D gaps closed on entries.
The verdict · earned
The Ducks earned it — the game and the expected-goals battle both.
SJS 2 · ANA 6
Preseason · exhibition
Split squads and prospects, not the club that will take the ice in October. The shots and grades below describe this game only: nothing here counts toward season records, form, rankings or player numbers.
◆ By the ModelSep 22, 10:39 PMxG: xgboost-0.758Edited for clarityDrafted from NHL play-by-play by Backcheck's model, worded for clarity by an AI editor that may not change a number. Nobody at Backcheck was at the rink. How this works
The Ducks pulled away from the Sharks in a game that only felt one-sided by the end. B. Sennecke had the biggest night of anyone on the ice, and Tristan Luneau was in on almost everything Anaheim did well. San Jose matched the Ducks goal for goal through most of two periods before Anaheim broke it open and cruised home 6-2.
San Jose actually struck first. E. Pohlkamp opened the scoring early in the first period off a feed from E. Cardwell, but the Ducks answered twice before the period was out — J. LaCombe tied it on a feed from C. Gauthier and T. Luneau, then L. Carlsson put Anaheim ahead. San Jose tied it again in the second when J. Huntington scored off B. Leason. That's when Sennecke took over. He scored on the power play to make it 2-3, added another later in the second, and completed his hat trick early in the third. Luneau capped the night himself with a slap shot from the point in the third period — the goal the game turned on, even with Anaheim already well ahead by then.
Here's what the scoreboard doesn't tell you: this was close to an even game. Expected goals finished at 2.90 for Anaheim and 2.43 for San Jose — a normal, competitive split, not a 6-2 gap. The Ducks scored 3.10 goals more than that workload should have produced, which is the real story of the night. That's either elite finishing or a hot week of bounces, and it's the kind of number that doesn't repeat every night out.
The shot-attempt battle also favored Anaheim less than the score suggests — the Ducks held 58% of attempts, a real edge but nowhere near a 6-2 gap — and San Jose actually won the high-danger chances, 2-1. San Jose's real problem was in net. M. Davis allowed 2.6 goals more than expected on a below-average workload, a rough final line at 0.750 save percentage. L. Brossoit, by contrast, was solid without being spectacular for Anaheim, stopping 21 of 23 and finishing +0.43 goals saved above expected. The special-teams gap mattered too: Anaheim converted 33% of its power plays against a league rate near 21%, while San Jose went 0-for-2.
The one real concern for San Jose is transition defense. They conceded 29 rush shots worth 2.03 expected goals — the Ducks scored five goals on rush chances alone, and those gaps showed up in every period. That's a more durable problem than one bad goaltending night, and it's the number San Jose's coaching staff should be looking at longer than the final score.