Jeff Misenti
The Anaheim Ducks‘ season ended Thursday night at the Honda Center with a 5-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 of the Western Conference Second Round. Vegas won the series 4-2 and moved on to the Western Conference Final.
Vegas have now advanced to the conference final for the fifth time in nine seasons, which is a reminder of how quickly that organization has built playoff weight. For Anaheim, this was the end of its first postseason run since 2018.
It was just 62 seconds into the game, when Mitch Marner gave Vegas a 1-0 lead on a breakaway. William Karlsson sent him in with a long pass, and Marner beat Lukas Dostal with a slick finish. Fast start. Bad sign.
CBS Sports reported that Marner played a role in all three Vegas goals in the first period, and that first-period push pretty much shaped the night. Anaheim wasn’t buried by one bad bounce. It was three hits before the Ducks could get their footing.
Brett Howden scored short-handed at 8:30 of the first period after taking a feed from Marner. That made it 2-0, and it hurt twice as much for Duck’s fans as the team were on the power play.
NHL.com stated that Howden’s goal was his third short-handed goal of the playoffs, tying the NHL record for most in one playoff run.
Shea Theodore made it 3-0 with 2:41 left in the opening period. Tomas Hertl won the offensive-zone draw back to Theodore, and he beat Dostal with a wrist shot from the blue line.
Granlund gives Anaheim a little life
Mikael Granlund cut the lead to 3-1 with 7:14 left in the second period. It gave the team and fans a little hope.
Carter Hart stopped 31 of 32 shots, showing that the Ducks put enough pucks on net to make the game interesting, but not enough of them turned into real damage.
Any hope was gone in the third period as Pavel Dorofeyev scored twice. His first came just under three minutes into the frame after Ivan Barbashev forced a turnover and set him up in the right circle. His second came with 6:28 left, making it 5-1.
A tough ending, but not an empty one
Vegas now heads to Colorado for Game 1 of the Western Conference Final on Wednesday, May 20. Anaheim heads into the offseason after a playoff run that ended hard, but still showed growth.
From a Ducks fan’s view, this one stings because the series had chances. Anaheim won Game 2. It answered in Game 4. It forced overtime in Game 5. Then Game 6 arrived, and Vegas looked like the older, sharper team.
That’s where the Ducks are now. They’re closer than before and after years away from the postseason stage, that still means something.
