Ahead of Friday’s meeting with the Minnesota Wild at the Honda Center, the Ducks looked to generate some offense with a reconfigured personnel.

Training reports indicated that Leo Carlsson would be flanked by teammates Isac Lundeström and Robby Fabbri on the front row. Notably, Mason McTavish skated on the fourth line.

The Ducks have been the NHL’s least offensively prolific team in terms of output — goals and goals per game — but rank 22nd out of 32 teams in expected goals per 60 minutes in MoneyPuck’s rankings.

Cutter Gauthier leads the team in shots on goal and Frank Vatrano is tied for second, but the two combined for just one goal – an empty net by Vatrano. Despite a similar lack of tangible rewards, Trevor Zegras has shown brilliant flashes of skills that have made him a star on the rise ahead of a nightmarish 2023-24 filled with injury setbacks and trade speculation.

So, are the Ducks scorers expected?

“I would think so. We’re all fishing for quarterbacks now,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said.

Even though the Ducks’ expected scores exceed their actual production, their possession numbers have been disappointing overall and the main reason they have had modest success (.417 points percentage) has been their goaltending. Although they scored 10 goals under their expected total at 5v5, Lukáš Dostál saved nearly a dozen goals above expectation at 5v5, the most of any goalie this season. season.

However, Tuesday 5-1 defeated by the Vancouver Canucks and their previous loss, a 4-2 flop against ChicagoDostál was beaten by outside factors like massive screens, passes through the seams and last-minute deflections.

“He was our star player this year and he still played well,” forward Brock McGinn said after the game against Chicago. “We need to do a better job of trying to score even more goals to give him an advantage.”

While the Ducks have attempted to suck up the Pacific Ocean with a coffee straw at even strength, their power play has flown freely in recent games. Of the three goals they scored at home, two were with a reinforced attack (one goal at five against four and another at six against four). They have four man advantage scorers in four games and are owned by four different scorers (Carlsson, McTavish, Troy Terry and Olen Zellweger).

The Wild went in the opposite direction on the power play, failing to convert on their last 14 opportunities. That includes an 0-for-4 performance on Tuesday, when perfection could have turned a lopsided defeat into a close victory as they fell 5-1 to the Kingswho iced the match into an empty net.