The Ducks will wrap up their six-game road trip against the same opponent that will get their upcoming homestand rolling, the Florida Panthers, as their interconference home-and-home set begins on Saturday in Sunrise. Florida won the Stanley Cup last season and the Prince of Wales Trophy as Eastern Conference champs in each of the past two campaigns. If the Panthers can repeat, they will have replicated the achievements of their in-state rivals, the Tampa Bay Lightning, by reaching three consecutive Stanley Cup Final series and twice quaffing the bubbly. Tampa did so between 2020 and 2022. The Lightning beat the Ducks, 4-3 in a shootout, behind a pair of power-play goals and a four-on-four tally on Thursday night. The Ducks got a goal from top producer Troy Terry, who missed four games (personal) and went scoreless in another in the Ducks’ past five outings. Terry now has 22 points in as many games since Nov. 25. Though they only slipped one point into their back pockets, the Ducks managed to hang with the NHL’s highest-octane offense, something that didn’t seem feasible as they scored a mere five goals in the first four games of the road trip, including a pair of shutout losses. “As a staff, we keep thinking about ways to generate more offense without sacrificing defense,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin told reporters after a 3-0 loss in Washington on Tuesday. “It’s frustrating. I’m sure (the players) feel it, we feel it as a staff. We’ve got to find a way to generate more goals without giving up goals.” Leo Carlsson also scored by way of a sharp-angled snipe that Mason McTavish, who moved to Carlsson’s wing, assisted on to give the Ducks sound production from their young pivots. Getting a little more from the back end beyond the noticeable contributions of Jackson LaCombe would also be a boost to the NHL’s most anemic group offensively. Of late, two of the Ducks’ other most gifted young blue-liners offensively, left defensemen Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov, have been alternating games in the pressbox. On Thursday, Zellweger slid to the right side in lieu of Drew Helleson, creating space for both scoring-savvy rearguards on the lineup sheet. Mintyukov, skating in his 100th NHL game, registered an assist and two shots as he looked sharp for much of the night. “It’s exciting to have that many young ‘D’ that are that good that we have the ability to interchange them and not really affect anything,” Ducks assistant coach Brent Thompson told Victory+. “They work extremely hard, they’re working on details within their game. Each one has something they need to work on, and they’re attacking it with enthusiasm.” The challenges ahead might be daunting whether for a young defenseman or a veteran as the Panthers await Saturday before the second and final meeting of the season on Tuesday at Honda Center. Sam Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk have been a three-headed monster for the Panthers while Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling have continued to anchor the back end. Ekblad (undisclosed) has been out with an injury since Jan. 8. Early in the season, a seven-game winning streak served as a springboard, but since then the Panthers have been pedestrian, barely eclipsing a .500 points percentage with a 15-14-2 record from Nov. 12 onward. DUCKS AT FLORIDA When: Saturday, 3 p.m. PT Where: Amerant Bank Arena, Sunrise, Fla. How to watch: Victory+