San Jose Sharks Justin Bailey (90) scored his first goal in pre season action against the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center in Anaheim on Wed Sep 27, 2023 (@SJSharks photo)

By Mary Walsh

The San Jose Sharks were beaten by the Anaheim Ducks 4-2 in a pre-season game on Wednesday at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Pavel Mintyukov, Chase De Leo, Brett Leason and Brock McGinn scored for the Ducks. Lukas Dostal made 45 saves for the win. Justin Bailey and Nathan Todd scored their firsts of the preseason for the Sharks. Georgi Romanov made 22 saves in the loss.

Justin Bailey scored the first goal of the game at 9:36 of the first period. The goal came on the power play while Nathan Gaucher sat in the box for slashing Jacob MacDonald. Assists went to Danil Gushchin and Henry Thrun. It was Bailey’s first goal of the preseason.

The Ducks came back at the end of the first with two quick goals. The first of these came from Pavel Mintyukov at 17:19. It was Mintyuokv’s first of the preseason. Adam Henrique got the assist.

The second Anaheim goal came from Chase De Leo at 18:07, his first of the preseason as well. Assists went to Nikita Nesterenko and Olen Zellweger.

The Sharks held a solid lead in shots for most of the first period but by the end it was close, 14-12 Sharks. The Ducks won 70.6% of the faceoffs and the Sharks had the only power play of the period. Brock McGinn was called for hooking Thomas Bordeleau at the end of the period, putting the Sharks on the power play to start the second.

The Sharks did not score on that power play. The only goal of the second period came from Brett Leason, at 8:16 of the period. Gaucher had an assist on Leason’s wrist shot.

The Sharks held a noteworthy lead in shots during the second, 17 to the Ducks’ 7.

Brock McGinn made it 4-1 just 23 seconds into the third period. Zack Kassian and Radko Gudas got the assists.

Nathan Todd cut the Ducks’ lead by one with a snap shot at 6:26. Assists went to Cole Cassels and Nikita Okhotiuk.

The game became distinctly more contentious after that. At 10:17, Tristan Robbins was called for goaltender interference, which led to matching roughing penalties for Robbins and Radko Gudas.

At 18:21, a bad hit by Alex Killorn on Filip Zadina spilled over into several penalties, including a 10 minute misconduct for Radko Gudas and a hi-sticking penalty for Matt Benning. Killorn was called for boarding. Zadina left the ice injured.

Sharks defenseman Radim Simek left the game after a collision in the first period.

The Sharks will play another preseason game at SAP San Jose against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday at 7:00 PM PT.