Dec 1, 2025; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Anaheim Ducks goaltender Ville Husso (33) defends the net against the St. Louis Blues during the second period at Enterprise Center.Zach CavanaghTue, December 2, 2025 at 5:02 AM UTC·8 min readST. LOUIS – Resiliency has been a key tenant for the Anaheim Ducks this season, whether its game-to-game, period-to-period or shift-to-shift, and the Ducks bounced back in a big way on Monday.
Third-string goaltender Ville Husso earned his second win in two starts with a 22-save performance, and the Ducks backed up that effort with a two-point night from Pavel Mintyukov and point-streak extensions for Beckett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson in a 4-1 road victory over the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnaheim snapped a 10-game losing streak to the Blues that dated back to 2021, and the Ducks avoided back-to-back losses for the seventh time this season. Anaheim has only dropped consecutive games three times.
The Ducks blew a three-goal lead in Chicago on Sunday and lost a goaltender for the second time in a week, but Anaheim again came out firing on Monday.
Mason McTavish scored a spinning shot off the boards for the opening goal, and Pavel Mintyukov sniped his second goal in three games minutes later to chase Blues starting goalie Jordan Binnington. Leo Carlsson tipped in Anaheim’s third goal and assisted on Chris Kreiders’ empty-netter
The Ducks are now 9-1-0 when scoring first, with the only loss coming yesterday to the Blackhawks.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAfter splitting the road back-to-back, the Ducks return to Honda Center for a three-game homestand, which opens on Wednesday against Utah.
Goaltenders Galore
The organizational depth of the Ducks’ crease and the strength of the Anaheim defense will be tested over the next two-to-three weeks, as three of the organization’s top four goaltenders are all on the shelf.
Ville Husso–who was re-signed to a two-year deal in the offseason as a third-string insurance policy after a rash of goaltending injuries last season decimated the AHL San Diego Gulls crease–started for Anaheim on Monday, and the 30-year-old Finn made 22 saves to earn his second win in two starts.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHusso now holds the starter’s crease after a tumultuous few weeks for Anaheim and San Diego netminders.
Ducks No. 1 goaltender Lukáš Dostál went down with an upper-body injury last week, which prompted the recall of third-string goaltender Ville Husso last week. Dostál was put on injured reserve on Monday and is out for that aforementioned two-to-three-week period.
Anaheim back-up Petr Mrázek went down midway through the third period in Chicago last night. The veteran is currently listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
The fourth-string goalie in the Ducks system, Calle Clang, took a leave of absence from the AHL San Diego Gulls last month due to personal reasons, which called Vyacheslav Buteyets up to the Gulls from the ECHL Tulsa Oilers.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWith Mrázek’s injury, Buteyets–the fifth-string netminder–was recalled to back up Husso and the Ducks in St. Louis on Monday.
Tomáš Suchánek is now the lone Ducks-contracted goaltender in the North American system, which leaves the Gulls without a back-up goaltender for the moment.
San Diego is certainly in need of someone to wear the pads, and if Mrázek’s injury ends up longer term, it’s possible the Ducks look for a veteran stop-gap.
If the Ducks are also going to survive this stretch, they will need better defensive efforts, like they put up on Monday in St. Louis.
At five-on-five, Anaheim is 31st in the league in expected goals against per 60 (2.99 xGA), but over the last two games at five-on-five, the Ducks were well below that average at 1.75 xGA in Chicago and 1.64 xGA in St. Louis.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Ducks also killed all six Blues power plays after allowing seven power play goals over the previous six games.
With the Ducks still generating plenty of offense, Anaheim will focus more on its own end in this stretch.
Mintyukov Marvels
The 22-year-old Russian grabbed the headlines of the hockey world a little under two weeks ago, when in the midst of three straight healthy scratches, it was reported that he would like to be moved if he wasn’t going to play.
Since being reinserted into the line-up five games ago, Mintyukov hasn’t only been the Ducks’ best defenseman, but he’s in the conversation for the team’s best player in that stretch.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMintyukove broke a 1-1 tie in the first period by streaking alone down right wing and ripping a shot to the far post for the go-ahead goal. It was Mintyukov’s second goal of the season and second in two games.
He later picked up a secondary assist on Carlsson’s goal for his first two-point night since last March.
Mintyukov was second in overall ice time with over 20 minutes played and part of the top penalty killing unit, which eliminated all six Blues power plays on the night.
He’s also been the Ducks best analytical defenseman over the last eight games with the Ducks posting a 60.5% expected goals share at five-on-five in the last five games.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMintyukov is playing, he’s excelling and he’s not moving anywhere.
Can’t Stop Those Kids
Mintyukov wasn’t the only member of the youth brigade to shine on Monday.
Beckett Sennecke, 19, extended his franchise-record point streak by a teenager to eight games with an assist on McTavish’s opening marker. Sennecke has seven assists and a goal in this stretch and continues to pull away from Oleg Tverdovsky’s old record of a five-game streak as a teen from 1995-96.
Sennecke’s eight-game streak matches Paul Kariya’s Ducks record for longest rookie point streak set in 1994-95, and Sennecke also became the second-fastest player in team history to hit 20 career points (26 games) behind only, one more time, Kariya’s 24 games in 1994-95.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCarlsson, 20, also continued to etch his name among Anaheim’s young franchise greats.
The Swedish superstar’s two-point night made him the fifth-fastest player to 25 career multi-point games as a Duck. Carlsson’s 157 games trails only Kariya (82 games), Trevor Zegras (111 games), Bobby Ryan (147 games) and Ryan Getzlaf (147 games).
Carlsson also notched a seven-game point streak for the second time this season. After recording an 11-game streak earlier in the season, he’s one of just two players in the league to record two seven-plus game point streaks along with Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl.
He is tied for fourth in the league in points (14 goals, 22 assists, 36 points) with Edmonton’s Connor McDavid. Carlsson and McDavid trail Chicago’s Connor Bedard and San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini (tied with 37 points) and Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon (44 points).
Line-up Logistics
Anaheim rolled out an 11-forward, 7-defenseman line-up for the second time this season, and for the second time, it was Ian Moore being reinserted to the line-up.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMoore initially was the one keeping Mintyukov out of the defensive pairs when Radko Gudas returned from injury, and once Mintyukov came back in and excelled, Moore was on the outside.
Ducks coach Joel Quenneville has been remiss to change the line-up following victories, but after blowing a 3-0 lead in Chicago on Sunday, Quenneville made striking changes.
Veteran Ryan Strome took his first healthy scratch since returning from injury, and Nikita Nesterenko also came out of the line-up for the first time since the last 11-7 Ducks line-up back in October.
Jansen Harkins also drew back in as fourth-line center.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnaheim’s last 11-7 experiment was a 2-1 overtime loss in Chicago on Oct. 19, but with the Ducks taking the “W” in St. Louis, will that line-up hold when Anaheim returns home on Wednesday?
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