{"id":300277,"date":"2026-05-05T04:17:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T04:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/300277\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T04:17:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T04:17:26","slug":"three-key-golden-knights-for-the-second-round-matchup-against-the-anaheim-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/300277\/","title":{"rendered":"Three key Golden Knights for the second round matchup against the Anaheim Ducks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5q\">Ah, the second round. It&#8217;s a testament to making it past the fringe players and moving closer to the Stanley Cup. That&#8217;s no different with the Vegas Golden Knights, who moved to this beautiful place after blowing out the <a href=\"https:\/\/vegashockeyknight.com\/vegas-golden-knights-advance-to-the-second-round-with-a-statement-win-over-the-mammoth\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Utah Mammoth on Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">So&#8230; what&#8217;s next for the Golden Knights?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">Are you ready to go &#8220;Under The Sea,&#8221; dear reader? Are you singing &#8220;Hakuna Matata&#8221; and did you &#8220;Let It Go&#8221; with the Utah Mammoth? A Disneyland trip awaits as the Golden Knights are heading to Anaheim to face the Ducks.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">That&#8217;s right, you&#8217;re getting more magic from an Orange County hockey squad than a short Romeo High School grad who somehow scored <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nhl\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401871302\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">against the Minnesota Wild<\/a>. Names like <a href=\"https:\/\/vegashockeyknight.com\/3-anaheim-ducks-that-the-vegas-golden-knights-can-t-keep-their-eyes-off-of\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leo Carlsson<\/a>, Chris Kreider, and Jackson LaCombe are ready to provide Anaheim with a fairy-tale ending by vanquishing the Golden Knights.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">So, how can the Golden Knights defeat the Ducks and give them a&#8230; plot twist? Well, these three Golden Knights will certainly have something to say about it. After all, they&#8217;re either looking to carry the last round&#8217;s momentum over, build some confidence, or shake some demons.<\/p>\n<p>1.) Nic Dowd<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6f\">It remains to be seen when (or if) the Vegas Golden Knights will get <a href=\"https:\/\/vegashockeyknight.com\/golden-knights-fans-react-to-the-latest-william-karlsson-news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">William Karlsson back<\/a>. If he returns to the ice, that would be a massive pickup for a team needing as much star power as possible. Until then, a similar-style player must step up and take the load off its shoulders.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6i\">Enter Nic Dowd.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6l\">Dowd has numerous similarities to the Original Misfit. He&#8217;s good at taking face-offs, is a key penalty killer, and does excellent work defensively. He also sparked a fourth-line revolution in the first round, scoring two goals. He will be vital for sparking another revolution against the Ducks and advancing to the Western Conference Final&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/nic-dowd-logan-cooley-vegas-golden-knights-utah-mammoth-im-coming-for-you-first-round-stanley-cup-playoffs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">if he doesn&#8217;t end a Duck&#8217;s life<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>2.) Carter Hart<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">The first round was a bit of&#8230; Jekyll and Hyde for Carter Hart. We&#8217;re talking about spectacular performances in Games 1, 2, and 6, only to be offset by paltry outputs in Games 3 and 4.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6u\">The result? A GAA of 2.72 and a save percentage of .898.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-14\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6x\">What Hart will the Golden Knights get in the second round? Will they get the goaltender who couldn&#8217;t defend shots at his ears? Or will they get the butterfly-aficionado who steals a game or two for the Golden Knights?<\/p>\n<p>3.) Tomas Hertl<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-16\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"73\">Now, Hertl&#8217;s postseason struggles with the Golden Knights have been well-documented on here. He only has two assists this postseason, with both coming on the power play. However, now would be a great time to get that going.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-17\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"76\">The Golden Knights center could use a bit of a confidence boost in the playoffs, especially since his Vegas residency hasn&#8217;t gone well at this time. Goals haven&#8217;t come across his stick and the <a href=\"https:\/\/vegashockeyknight.com\/team-czechia-will-learn-what-vegas-golden-knights-fans-already-know-about-tomas-hertl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Czech Olympian<\/a> is starving like he hasn&#8217;t seen a meal in a soup kitchen. Let&#8217;s change that against the Ducks, shall we?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow vegashockeyknight.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=vegashockeyknight.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ah, the second round. It&#8217;s a testament to making it past the fringe players and moving closer to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-300277","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\/300277","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=300277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}