Anaheim Ducks left wing Cutter Gauthier (61) competes for the puck during the NHL game against the Utah Mammoth, Wednesday December 3rd, 2025 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.Zach CavanaghThu, December 4, 2025 at 8:26 AM UTC·8 min readANAHEIM, Calif. – There wasn’t much of anything to take out of Honda Center on Wednesday night for the Anaheim Ducks, as they endured their worst home loss in franchise history–a 7-0 defeat to the Utah Mammoth.
“This is one that at the end of the year you look back and you might have two, three, four you can say you throw in the garbage can,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “That’s the first we’re going to throw in the garbage can.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWere there any positives to be found in the fifth loss by seven or more goals in franchise history?
“It’s over,” Quenneville said.
It was the team’s second-ever 7-0 defeat (Dec. 13, 2022 in Toronto). Only an 8-0 defeat in Dallas in 2001 surpassed Wednesday’s result as the worst losing differential in the team’s 32-year history.
“We want to hold ourselves to the highest possible standard,” Ducks captain Radko Gudas said. “We think very highly of ourselves. We want to be better every day, and this wasn't the case today, so it's a big learning process for us. This one stings, especially coming back home, in front of our fans. We never want to have games like that, especially in our own barn. Really were not happy with our performance today. So tomorrow we're going to put our words to work boots on and get back at it.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnaheim will not get back at it tomorrow, as the Ducks’ coaching staff decided after the game to not hold practice on Thursday. The team will participate in its annual charity holiday shopping event for underprivileged children.
The Ducks’ next chance to make amends will come on Friday against the Washington Capitals, who put up their own touchdown in San Jose tonight in a 7-1 victory.
“We got to be better,” Gudas said. “This is unacceptable from our part.”
What Went Wrong?
Quenneville called Wednesday’s effort one of the flattest on the bench and on the ice he’s seen from the Ducks this season.
“We looked like we’re a step slow,” Quenneville said. “There wasn’t much happening tonight.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAside from a short burst of energy that led to a Mason McTavish goal that was ruled offside when Anaheim was already down 3-0, there wasn’t much of anything that went the way the Ducks have been used to this season.
“Some of the puck decisions,” Gudas said. “We didn't own the blue lines, like we can do. We didn't use our speed to our advantage. There was a lot of stuff that we put behind ourselves, keep bringing back, we usually advance forward. So those are little things that we usually do, and today, we did it until it ended up costing us a lot of those mistakes.”
For the 17th time in 27 games, Anaheim allowed the opening goal of the game, and for the third time in the last six games, the Ducks allowed the first two goals of the game.
Despite scoring the opening goals of the last two games in Chicago and St. Louis, including a 3-0 lead in an eventual 5-3 loss in Chicago on Sunday, it is a lingering problem for Anaheim.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Ducks are 7-9-1 when allowing the first goal and 3-3-0 when allowing the first two goals. Anaheim is 9-1-0 when scoring first.
“There's still a lot of things we need to work on,” Gudas said. “This is a long season. We need to step after step and try to put together a full 60 minutes. I thought last game in St. Louis, we did a lot better job in all those things, and today we kind of took a step back. A lot of things we're gonna have to learn from tonight.”
The Ducks have done a pretty good job bouncing back from losses with only three sets of back-to-back losses any point this season. As Gudas alluded to, the Ducks showcased that ability the next night after what could have been a devastating loss in Chicago to again set the tone in a win at St. Louis.
The trick is to get back on that horse and start stringing the wins together again. More lessons to learn for a still young Ducks core.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Trying to recapture a feeling where we can get something consecutively going here,” Quenneville said. “That’s night in, night out, nobody’s lying down here. The highs and the lows and handling going forward is part of a young team trying to find its way. I feel that the response we felt in situations comparable to how we feel right now going into the next game, we’ve been pretty effective, but we gotta prove that.”
Vyacheslav Buteyets Gets Plenty of Work in NHL Debut
It wasn’t an ideal spot for the NHL debut of 23-year-old Vyacheslav “Slava” Buteyets, as the 6-foot-4 Russian netminder came in in relief for the third period with the Ducks trailing 3-0.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHowever, whenever that call came, he would take it.
“It's about job trying to get done and that's it,” Buteyets said. “(Ducks goaltending coach) Peter Budaj came to locker room and say that I'm jumping in. So, I can't say that I was surprised because all the coaches telling me that I have always been ready. So that's what I was, and I was ready.
Buteyets allowed three difficult goals on 13 shots in the third period, as Utah kept coming after putting four goals past Ville Husso on 21 shots.
“Tough spot, ya know?” Quenneville said. “He did what he had to do on a couple funny bounces at the net. It’s kind of an opportunity for him. When we looked at our depth chart at the beginning of the year, I don’t know if we forecasted him playing this early in the season. He got a chance to play, and it’s a heck of an accomplishment to get an NHL game. We’ll see going forward how he does, but I thought he was okay.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementButeyets entered the season as the fifth goaltender in the Anaheim Ducks organization, which landed him with the ECHL’s Tulsa Oilers. However, with injuries to the Ducks’ top two netminders–Lukas Dostal and Petr Mrazek–and Anaheim’s No. 4 goaltender, Calle Clang, on personal leave, Buteyets made his way through AHL San Diego to Anaheim for his NHL debut.
Buteyets became the 72nd goalie in league history to play in the ECHL, AHL and NHL in the same season, and the second Ducks netminder to do so following Timo Pielmeier in 2010-11.
“Things happen quickly, and so you have to just get used to it,” Buteyets said, “and it's nothing but work. So it doesn't matter where are you, you just have to put it to work every single time, and it doesn't matter.”
With the Ducks goaltending depth thinned out, it doesn’t help matters for Husso or Buteyets to be put in the positions they were tonight. Especially with Dostal and Mrazek bailing out the team in many spots early in the year, Anaheim knows it needs to be better.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I think everybody needs to tighten things up,” Gudas said. “The goalies been a huge part of our success. There are big reasons why we are where we are. And we need to, in these games, we need to come big for them as well. We need to block a lot more shots. We need to make them see the puck. We can't give them three-on-ones, you know? Those are things we're gonna look at tomorrow and learn from a bit better. And I'm pretty confident that this will not happen again this year.”
Injury Updates: Granlund Close, Mrázek Out 2-3 Weeks, Dostál “On Course”
Ducks forward Mikael Granlund (injured reserve, lower-body) skated with the team for the first time on Wednesday morning. Granlund has been out of the last eight games and 16 of the last 17 after suffering and reaggravating the same lower-body injury.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementQuenneville said that Granlund could draw back into the line-up at the end of this three-game homestand or at the start of the next road trip.
Back-up goaltender Petr Mrázek was given a two-to-three week timeline for his lower-body injury, according to Quenneville. Mrázek left in the third period in Chicago on Sunday.
No. 1 goaltender Lukáš Dostál made an on-ice appearance before the morning skate on Wednesday after being officially put on injured reserve on Monday.
Dostál has been out one week since being dinged with an upper-body injury. Quenneville said Dostál is “on course” for his two-to-three-week recovery window.
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