{"id":285352,"date":"2026-04-25T09:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T09:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/285352\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T09:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T09:49:12","slug":"anaheim-ducks-blast-edmonton-oilers-7-4-in-their-first-home-playoff-game-in-8-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/285352\/","title":{"rendered":"Anaheim Ducks blast Edmonton Oilers 7-4 in their first home playoff game in 8 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Beckett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson scored 42 seconds apart in the third period, Mikael Granlund had a goal and two assists, and the Anaheim Ducks celebrated their first home playoff game in eight years with a 7-4 victory over the Edmonton Oilers and a 2-1 series lead on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>Jeffrey Viel and Jackson LaCombe also scored in the third and Lukas Dostal made 20 saves for <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/anaheim-ducks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the upstart Ducks<\/a>, who have poured in 16 goals in three games to take an early lead in this first-round series against the two-time Western Conference champion Oilers. Mason McTavish and Alex Killorn scored early goals to the soundtrack of a raucous sellout crowd hungry for <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ducks-oilers-nhl-playoffs-preview-connor-mcdavid-c008f318f4385223276c91cd73069f2a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Orange County\u2019s first postseason hockey since 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt sounded like an army out there almost,\u201d Sennecke said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been waiting eight years for this, nine years for a win, so it was pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just as they\u2019ve done so many times over their first season under coach Joel Quenneville, the Ducks overcame their clear defensive shortcomings by simply outscoring the powerhouse Oilers, thriving even after Connor McDavid recorded his first points of the series.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought we had a great start to the game (and) did a lot of good things most of the night,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cIt was nice to see the crowd get rewarded with a win. Been a long time coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Game 4 is Sunday night in Anaheim.<\/p>\n<p>McDavid had a power-play goal in the third period and an assist, although the NHL scoring champion still doesn\u2019t appear to be at full health. Vasily Podkolzin, Kasperi Kapanen and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins also scored, and Connor Ingram stopped 32 shots.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou look at the goals against, and just some stuff that shouldn\u2019t happen, especially at this time of year,\u201d Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. \u201cThere was lost coverage in front of the net. Couple of times we were careless with the puck. Early on, they were much more intense. They definitely looked like they wanted it more in the first period. We were able to find our legs. We started skating later in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Appropriately for <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ducks-oilers-score-nhl-stanley-cup-dda100bb0720b813e0e27bded81300f2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a defense-deficient series<\/a>, the Ducks capitalized on two transition sequences early in the third to take control.<\/p>\n<p>Moments after <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NHL\/status\/2047893859271668076\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sennecke ripped a wrist shot<\/a> for the tiebreaking goal and the precocious rookie\u2019s first playoff point, Carlsson clinically finished a textbook 2-on-1 rush with Troy Terry.<\/p>\n<p>McDavid trimmed the Oilers\u2019 deficit with a fortunate deflection off Pavel Mintyukov\u2019s stick, but the superstar short-circuited another power play later in the third by cross-checking Tyson Hinds.<\/p>\n<p>Viel then flipped home a backhand with 3:03 left to cap a strong game by the Ducks\u2019 fourth line, and LaCombe lofted an empty-net goal all the way from the Ducks\u2019 goal line to seal Anaheim\u2019s first home playoff victory since May 14, 2017, in the conference finals against Nashville.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe couldn\u2019t even hear ourselves out there,\u201d Viel said. \u201cDefinitely got us going right from the start.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The clubs split the series\u2019 first two games in Edmonton, but the Ducks demonstrated they could stay with the playoff-tested Oilers despite the obvious deficiencies of an inexperienced group that allowed more goals this season than any other playoff team.<\/p>\n<p>Anaheim rode the wave of crowd energy and dominated play early in Game 3, putting 20 shots on Ingram in the first period. The Oilers surged to a 3-2 lead early in the second, but Killorn tied it with his 39th career playoff goal.<\/p>\n<p>Oilers forwards Adam Henrique and Jason Dickinson missed Game 3 with injuries.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP NHL: <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/NHL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Beckett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson scored 42 seconds apart in the third period, Mikael&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[89088,4855,163,824,165,164,7,11839,18693,2070,2099,11508,101557,1719,89089,63618,1716,5498,1721,823,404,1489,18469,90828,127,4862,111950,62619],"class_list":{"0":"post-285352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-adam-henrique","9":"tag-alex-killorn","10":"tag-anaheim","11":"tag-anaheim-ducks","12":"tag-anaheim-headlines","13":"tag-anaheim-news","14":"tag-california","15":"tag-connor-ingram","16":"tag-connor-mcdavid","17":"tag-edmonton-oilers","18":"tag-jackson-lacombe","19":"tag-jason-dickinson","20":"tag-jeffrey-truchon-viel","21":"tag-joel-quenneville","22":"tag-kasperi-kapanen","23":"tag-kris-knoblauch","24":"tag-leo-carlsson","25":"tag-lukas-dostal","26":"tag-mason-mctavish","27":"tag-mikael-granlund","28":"tag-nhl","29":"tag-nhl-hockey","30":"tag-pavel-mintyukov","31":"tag-ryan-nugent-hopkins","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-troy-terry","34":"tag-tyson-hinds","35":"tag-vasily-podkolzin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}