Pat Pickens
The Anaheim Ducks needed a better effort in Game 2 to get back in the Western Conference second round series against the Vegas Golden Knights.
Mission accomplished.
Anaheim outplayed Vegas from start to finish and retook home-ice advantage with a 3-1 win on Wednesday at T-Mobile Arena.
Bennett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson each scored, and Jansen Harkins sealed the game with a third-period empty-net goal. Lukas Dostal made 21 saves and came just five seconds from his first-career playoff shutout before Mark Stone broke it at 19:55 of the third.
The Ducks evened the best-of-7 series at a game apiece. Game 3 will be Friday at 6:30 p.m. PT at Honda Center. Here are the Game 2 takeaways.
The Ducks Dominated and Kept Their Cool in Game 2
Anaheim outplayed Vegas. But it also showed veteran-level resolve given how the first half of the game went.
The Ducks got four power plays in the first 10 minutes, including two five-on-three advantages, but could not find the back of the net. They outshot the Golden Knights 13-3 in the first period yet couldn’t solve goalie Carter Hart.
“It was hard,” Carlsson said. “We bounced back from it, just playing good hockey.”
But they kept at it. They didn’t get bogged down by frustration and finally found the answer when Ryan Poehling forced a turnover, and Jeffrey Viel found Sennecke at the top of the crease to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 11:23 of the second period.
“We had some good shifts in the second period with possession,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Finding a way to score first was important.”
But the Ducks punched first over the first two periods, even though Vegas outshot Anaheim 11-7 in the second. Anaheim finished the first period with a 1.56-0.09 all-situation Expected Goals mark, and held a 2.57-0.92 lead in xG over the first 40 minutes despite only leading 1-0 through two periods.
That the Ducks found the second goal was essential, especially given Vegas’ penchant for rallying in these playoffs. Carlsson showed great poise by burying a neat cross-slot feed from Troy Terry that effectively sealed the game at 6:36 of the third.
“I was just trying to get open,” Carlsson said. “Just shot it and put it in the top cheese there.”
The Ducks PP Needs to Find its Magic
We can credit the Ducks’ resilience, but their power play nearly cost them Game 2.
Anaheim is 0 for 9 with the man-advantage through two games against Vegas. After putting five power-play shots in Game 1, the Ducks came up empty on six shots on goal in their five PPs in Game 2.
“Their pressure is good,” Carlsson said of the Vegas PK. “Long sticks, big bodies. We’ve just got to look at the tape and be better at.”
The Ducks power play was a major storyline in the first round against the Edmonton Oilers. They were 8 for 16 against Edmonton and were leading the playoffs in power-play percentage through the first round.
Maybe Anaheim was due a regression, since its power play was 23rd in the NHL during the regular season (18.6%%). Quenneville liked the Ducks’ process in Game 2 even though they couldn’t beat Hart.
“I thought we had some great chances on the power play,” Quenneville said. “We didn’t lose momentum with the game having so many quality opportunities.”
Still, Anaheim will need to find a power-play goal at some point back on home ice.
Lukas Dostal and the Ducks Defense Were Stellar
Dostal was crucial, especially in the third period where the Golden Knights had a 25-10 shot-attempt advantage and had 14 of the 17 scoring chances.
But it wasn’t just him. The Ducks blocked 14 shots and laid their bodies on the line in the third period, particularly when they blocked four shots on Vegas’ third-period power play after Poehling was sent off for tripping Jack Eichel.
“I’m gonna say this is as good as we’ve played,” Quenneville said. “They got some looks. Obviously, we were lucky two or three times at the end where they had wide-open looks at the net. We were diving all over the place. We were lucky they didn’t go in.”
But for as wide open and freewheeling as the Edmonton series was is as structured as Games 1 and 2 vs Vegas have been. Dostal has clearly benefitted from the latter, and he has picked up his game too by stopping 40 of 43 shots (.930 save%) through two games after posting an .873 save% vs Edmonton and being pulled in Game 5.
“Even against Edmonton, I thought we were cutting the speed against the two best players in the world,” Dostal said, referencing Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. “The guys have been playing unbelievable defensively throughout the playoffs so far, so all credit to them.”
The only thing for Dostal left to do is finish off a shutout. But he wasn’t sweating that fact.
“It doesn’t matter how you win or what the score is,” Dostal said. “Obviously, [the shutout] is the cherry on top, but it doesn’t really matter. We got the ‘W’ and that’s all that really matters.”
