Game 1 Factoids<\/a><\/p>\nWith the series win over Edmonton last Thursday, Anaheim advanced to the Second Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the ninth time in franchise history.<\/p>\n
Jackson LaCombe had nine points in the series setting the team\u2019s single-series record for First Round points and assists by a defenseman (1-8=9). Additionally, he leads all defensemen in points and assists this postseason. Cutter Gauthier leads the team with four goals in the playoffs while Troy Terry, Leo Carlsson, and Alex Killorn have three apiece.<\/p>\n
Vegas enters the Second Round after beating Utah in six games marking back-to-back Round 2 appearances for the club. Jack\u00a0Eichel\u2019s eight assists are tied for the league-high while Brett Howden\u2019s four goals lead the club this postseason.<\/p>\n
This is the first meeting between the clubs in the playoffs; however, the Ducks swept the Golden Knights in the regular season, winning all three games by one score \u2013 albeit, the same score, 4-3 \u2013 with two of the three wins coming in overtime.<\/p>\n
Despite the sweep, a new season starts now, and the Ducks know starting fast and opening the scoring is of the essence against a club like Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a lot of holes,\u201d head coach Joel Quenneville said of his team\u2019s next opponent. \u201cI think that we\u2019ve gotta be at our best. We have to make sure we start the series (fast). Every game\u2019s going to be important that we play consistently. We can\u2019t give up leads. When I say leads, we can\u2019t give up chasing a game like we saw most of the year and in that last round, as well. Let\u2019s make sure our starts are going to be better. We\u2019re going to need everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important that we\u2019ve gotta be ready from the start,\u201d LaCombe added. \u201cLast round, our start to Game 1 wasn\u2019t great. I know we bounced back in Game 2 after that, but I think just being ready to go right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the team heads to Sin City, some pundits say the club is playing with house money in the playoffs. If you ask the players, they\u2019re focusing on playing gritty, knowing there\u2019s still a lot left to accomplish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to play as underdogs through the whole playoff series,\u201d LaCombe reflected. \u201cWe\u2019re going to just keep playing our game, doing our thing, and keep rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n
VGK head coach John Tortorella said William Karlsson will return to the lineup for the first time since last playing the Ducks in November. The center has been sidelined on injured reserve with a lower-body injury. \u00a0<\/p>\n
As for the Ducks, Quenneville said Radko Gudas (lower-body) \u201cis more than ready to help us at some point\u201d while Terry will be in the lineup tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ducks hit the road for Game 1 of the Second Round, as they take on the Golden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-299598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299598","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=299598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}