{"id":658013,"date":"2026-05-09T10:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T10:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/658013\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T10:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T10:58:09","slug":"takeaways-golden-knights-rout-ducks-as-offence-runs-through-marner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/658013\/","title":{"rendered":"Takeaways: Golden Knights rout Ducks as offence runs through Marner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mitch Marner<\/a> is creating magic in these Stanley Cup Playoffs, and he just produced a new act. The star forward scored a hat trick \u2014 and a natural one, at that \u2014 in Game 3 against the Anaheim Ducks Friday night to propel the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> to a dominant 6-2 victory and a 2-1 series lead.<\/p>\n

His fingerprints were truly all over this contest, in every facet of the game. After recording an assist on Brayden McNabb\u2019s short-handed marker midway through the first period, No. 93 tucked home a power-play goal with just five seconds left in the frame. That goal ultimately ended Ducks starter Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l\u2019s night \u2014 backup Ville Husso<\/a> started the second period. <\/p>\n

The goalie change made no difference for Marner, though. He followed up an impressive first frame with a pair of even-strength goals in the second to complete his first career post-season hat trick as well as his first career four-point playoff game.<\/p>\n

He now has six goals through nine games this spring, which doubles his previous post-season high attained in 11 games with the 2022-23 Toronto Maple Leafs. He finished that playoff run with 14 points \u2014 just one more than he\u2019s got now in his first run with the Golden Knights. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s currently in a five-way tie for the league lead in playoff goals and stands alone atop the NHL\u2019s points leaderboard.<\/p>\n

Marner\u2019s goal-scoring was slow to heat up with Vegas in these playoffs, but his offence arrived at the perfect time. He scored twice in Game 6 of Round 1 against Utah to eliminate the Mammoth, and any questions about whether he\u2019d be able to carry that momentum into Round 2 have quickly been answered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marner\u2019s move to the wing brings massive boost<\/p>\n

Even when the points weren\u2019t pouring in like they were Friday night, Marner has played really well this post-season. But it\u2019s no coincidence his best statistical outing came in a game that saw him returned to his winger roots.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With William Karlsson missing the bulk of the 2025-26 season, Marner has been filling a team need at centre. He\u2019s had experience there before, but has played on the wing for pretty much his entire pro career. That\u2019s where he\u2019s best, and at his most productive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahead of Friday\u2019s matchup, with Karlsson suiting up for his third game of the post-season after being out since November, Vegas head coach John Tortorella shook up his lines a little and placed Karlsson between Marner and Brett Howden. On the wing, Marner was magic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t be a surprise to see Tortorella roll out that same trio against for Sunday\u2019s Game 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Golden Knights’ penalty kill just keeps getting better<\/p>\n

If we sound like a broken record, praising Vegas\u2019 PK game after game, well\u2026 it\u2019s just\u00a0that\u00a0good. Vegas has yet to give up a power-play goal this series. Just as they did against Utah in Round 1, the Golden Knights\u2019 penalty kill is outscoring their opponent\u2019s power play. Friday\u2019s shorthanded marker was Vegas\u2019s third of the post-season. They\u2019ve won all three games in which they\u2019ve scored on the penalty kill, the unit clearly bringing a much bigger boost and momentum shift than their power play (which, to be fair, has started to wake up of late).\u00a0<\/p>\n

With a penalty kill this good, Vegas is starting to look unstoppable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stone\u2019s injury delivers tough blow in otherwise great game<\/p>\n

Contrary to what the scoresheet says, not\u00a0everything\u00a0went perfectly for the Golden Knights on Friday night. While the club won in dominant fashion, they lost captain Mark Stone<\/a> to injury early on in the matchup. During his seventh shift of the first frame, Stone pulled up with what looked like a lower-body injury, skating to the bench mid-play and immediately limping down the tunnel. He didn\u2019t go out for the second period, though did he did make an appearance back on the bench for a brief stint, hitting the ice during a TV timeout but quickly departing. He didn\u2019t return after that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Injuries have plagued Stone through much of his career, including this season \u2014 he was limited to 60 games this year.<\/p>\n

After playing hero in Game 2, Dostal takes a step back<\/p>\n

Dost\u00e1l won the goalie battle in Vegas two nights ago, but Carter Hart was the last goalie standing in Anaheim. Hart\u2019s strong start was key for Vegas in Game 3, while the Ducks\u2019 inability to solve him early on was made worse by the fact the Golden Knights clearly had Dostal\u2019s number. After allowing three goals on just eight shots in the first period, Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville turned to Husso.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Husso didn\u2019t fare too well, either, allowing two goals on nine shots in the second period, but he held strong in the third despite the game being all but decided at that point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state of Anaheim\u2019s net will be an interesting talking point ahead of Game 4. Dostal appeared to have hit his stride in Game 2, but did he just take a step back? Do the Ducks feel he has a bounce-back ahead, or might they turn to Husso again? Interesting times ahead in Anaheim.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitch Marner is creating magic in these Stanley Cup Playoffs, and he just produced a new act. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-658013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}