{"id":659478,"date":"2026-05-09T08:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T08:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659478\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T08:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T08:40:08","slug":"ducks-doomed-by-slow-start-in-game-3-loss-in-western-2nd-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659478\/","title":{"rendered":"Ducks doomed by slow start in Game 3 loss in Western 2nd Round"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the 13th time this season goalie Lukas Dostal<\/a>\u00a0gave up a goal on the first shot he faced. He let the first one past him in Game 4 and Game 5 in the first round against the Edmonton Oilers and 10 times in the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dostal made five saves in the first period and was replaced by Ville Husso<\/a>\u00a0to start the second. Dostal\u2019s status as the Game 4 starter here on Sunday (9:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN360, SN, TVAS) is not guaranteed according to Quenneville.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a great start, they score inside the first (two) minutes and then they get a PK and then that goal on the power play with whatever it was, five seconds left, it\u2019s tough to win a game when you put yourself in spots like that,\u201d Ducks forward Alex Killorn<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cSome mistakes that we made was not typical of our team, but it\u2019s a seven-game series, they played well tonight I give them credit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Going into the playoffs after a seven-season absence and upsetting the Oilers in six games in the first round, the Ducks went into the series against the Golden Knights feeling as though they were playing with house money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the deeper they go, the more the pressure increases due to the weight of expectations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anaheim knew that going into Game 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s slowly increasing because the games mean just so much more,\u201d Ducks forward Beckett Sennecke<\/a>\u00a0said Friday morning. \u201cEvery next game is the biggest game of the year. We all feel that weight in here but at the same time, we all worked for that and prepared for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, facing real adversity for the first time in the playoffs, the Ducks are already looking ahead at the next game. It\u2019s close to a must-win, as Anaheim does not want to fall behind 3-1 in the series with Game 5 back in Vegas on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll take the lessons from this one, leave the mistakes and improve and respond,\u201d Ducks forward Chris Kreider<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cGive them credit, they played a good first period, we just have to have a better start.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was the 13th time this season goalie Lukas Dostal\u00a0gave up a goal on the first shot he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-659478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}