Ahead of Friday’s meeting with the Minnesota Wild at the Honda Center, the Ducks tried to spark some offense with their reconfigured personnel.

Reports from practice indicated that Leo Carlsson will be flanked by fellow lunch pail linemen Isac Lundeström and Robby Fabbri on the top line. In particular, Mason McTavish skated on the fourth line.

The Ducks have been the NHL’s least prolific offensive 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, however the two combined for just one goal – a Vatrano goal. Despite a similar lack of tangible rewards, Trevor Zegras showed bright flashes of skill that turned him into a strong rising star ahead of a nightmare 2023-24 filled with injuries and trade speculation.

So, is it due to the Ducks’ scorers?

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

Despite the fact that the Ducks’ expected results exceeded their actual results, their possession numbers were generally disappointing and the main reason they enjoyed modest success (.417 percentage points) was their goaltending. Although they scored 10 goals below their expected five-on-five total, Lukáš Dostál saved nearly a dozen more goals than expected at 5v5, the most of any goalkeeper this season.

However, in Tuesday’s 5-1 from the Vancouver Canucks and their previous loss, a 4-2 flop against ChicagoDostál was beaten by extraneous factors such as massive screens, seam passes and last-minute deflections.

“He’s been our star player this year and he’s still played well,” forward Brock McGinn said after the Chicago game. “We have to do a better job of trying to score some goals for him to give him a cushion.”

While the Ducks have tried to suck the Pacific Ocean through a coffee straw at even strength, their power play has been loose in recent games. Of the three goals they scored in this stand, two came with an augmented attack (one goal came five on four and another six on four). They have four man advantage scorers in four games and they belong to four different scorers (Carlsson, McTavish, Troy Terry and Olen Zellweger).

The Wild went the other way on the power play, failing to convert on their last 14 chances. That includes an 0-for-4 performance on Tuesday, when perfection could have turned a lopsided loss into a narrow victory as they fell 5-1 to the Kingswhich iced the game with an empty net.