LAS VEGAS \u2014 Coming off a high-flying first-round series against the Edmonton Oilers, the Anaheim Ducks\u2019 high-octane attack was held mostly in check in the Golden Knights\u2019 3-1 Game 1 victory on Monday night.<\/p>\n
The game ended with an exciting sequence of two goals \u2014 and some controversy.<\/p>\n
The Ducks tied the game 1-1 with just over six minutes to go in the third period on a goal by Mikael Granlund. Jackson LaCombe drove the net and shot it off Vegas goalie Carter Hart\u2019s pad, and it bounced straight to Granlund, who buried the shot into the wide-open net.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take the Golden Knights long to answer, though. Ivan Barbashev scored 1 minute, 5 seconds, later with a goal right in front on a feed by Pavel Dorofeyev. It appeared the Ducks were expecting an icing call just seconds before the goal. LaCombe and Jack Eichel were racing for the puck, and the officials opted not to call icing, and Vegas scored moments later. The Ducks, not surprisingly, were irate that icing was not called.<\/p>\n
As is standard practice in the NHL, on-ice officials declined to speak to a reporter from The Athletic who sought comment after the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe (had) just scored,\u201d Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. \u201cIt was a huge call and it was an easy call.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitch Marner added a late empty-net goal to give Vegas an early series lead heading into Game 2 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Both netminders were sharp early on, stopping a combined total of 17 shots in the first period. Anaheim found its game quickly, controlling possession and territory in the opening frame, but couldn\u2019t beat Hart to take advantage of it.<\/p>\n
The Golden Knights opened the scoring early in the second period, when Marner threaded a puck through the Ducks\u2019 defense to Brett Howden, who tapped it into the wide-open net. It was Howden\u2019s team-leading fifth goal of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Anaheim controlled the neutral zone more often than not, and won the territorial advantage as a result. Despite spending all of that time in the attacking zone, the Ducks weren\u2019t able to get many passes through Vegas\u2019 zone defense. The majority of their shots came from distance, and second-chance opportunities were hard to come by.<\/p>\n
Hart finished the game with 33 saves on 34 shots, his best performance of the postseason. The Ducks played a solid opening game on the road, but will need to be more opportunistic moving forward to upset Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was our best player tonight,\u201d Golden Knights coach John Tortorella said of Hart. \u201cWe struggled to find our game. Found it in certain pockets of the game. But Carter, he was outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaCombe\u2019s fateful pass<\/p>\n
The Ducks created their share of scoring chances. They shot the puck often and tested Hart, forcing him to make double-digit saves in the first two periods. One golden chance they\u2019ll regret came in the second period.<\/p>\n
With Vegas leading 1-0, Anaheim center Leo Carlsson made a spinning move as he hit the Vegas zone to send a defender flying. After creating space for himself, Carlsson managed to find LaCombe sitting unguarded below the hash marks inside the right circle.<\/p>\n
Hart had committed to his right, so LaCombe had an open net to shoot into and tie the game. Instead, the standout Ducks defenseman moved the puck back into the slot area for Troy Terry, but by then the Golden Knights recovered and broke up the play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThought he kind of slid over, and as soon as I fully turned my head around, he wasn\u2019t there and I already kind of made the decision to pass,\u201d LaCombe said. \u201cIt was just a stupid mistake. Yeah, want that one back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t see it in time and just made the play too early.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staying disciplined<\/p>\n
A primary focus for the Ducks entering the playoffs was their discipline and limiting trips to the penalty box. Edmonton had the top-ranked power play during the regular season, so keeping the Oilers from continually operating in five-on-four mode was paramount.<\/p>\n
The Oilers did eventually score four power-play goals after a sluggish start against Anaheim\u2019s penalty kill. But the Ducks only gave them 14 situations in their six-game victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best part about it though was that the whole series we didn\u2019t take many penalties, and that was one of the things that we had to do in order to have some success,\u201d Quenneville said.<\/p>\n
They continued to be prudent in Game 1. Forward Jeffrey Viel took a cross-checking penalty midway through the first period, which Anaheim effectively killed off. It was the only Vegas power play until John Carlson was nabbed for hooking Marner midway through the third.<\/p>\n
The Ducks killed both penalties. That\u2019s how Quenneville wants his team to play \u2013 hard but without infractions.<\/p>\n
Vegas\u2019 penalty kill is strong<\/p>\n
Seven games into their postseason, the Golden Knights\u2019 penalty kill has still outscored the opposition\u2019s power play. They were 4-for-4 on Monday and made it look easy against a Ducks power play that converted at an incredible 50 percent clip in the first round against Edmonton.<\/p>\n
Vegas\u2019 penalty kill didn\u2019t get on the board itself, after scoring short-handed twice against Utah, but it forced the Ducks to spend most of their time with the man advantage chasing the puck back down the ice and trying to enter the zone. When Anaheim did set things up in the offensive zone, the Golden Knights had excellent defensive sticks and closed off any passing lanes to the slot. They\u2019ve now killed 19 of 20 power plays this postseason (95 percent).<\/p>\n
Return of \u2018Wild Bill\u2019<\/p>\n
As William Karlsson lined up for his first faceoff since November, he was attempting to strategize with defenseman Shea Theodore, but the two couldn\u2019t hear each other over the cheers from the crowd for Karlsson\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old center missed most of the regular season with a lower-body injury and made his long-awaited return Monday night. Karlsson made an immediate impact, finding Rasmus Andersson with a long stretch pass to spring him on a breakaway on his first shift of the game. Lukas Dostal gloved Andersson\u2019s shot to deny Karlsson of the assist, but it shows the impact he can make on this team despite coming off the longest absence of his career.<\/p>\n
Karlsson was noticeable throughout the game, including a dangerous look in the second period from the right circle that Dostal just kicked out his right pad in time to save. He was sorely missed by the Golden Knights and should only get better from here.<\/p>\n
Ducks need McTavish<\/p>\n
Mason McTavish isn\u2019t among the Ducks\u2019 top six forwards and no longer plays center after being in those spots for much of his four seasons. It has been a down season for the 23-year-old, but he looked more like his former self in a productive and impactful first round.<\/p>\n
McTavish scored his first career playoff goal in a Game 3 win over the Oilers and had assists in each of the final three games. His ice time is down 2 1\/2 minutes on average from the regular season, but he made the most of that playing time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been better,\u201d said McTavish, citing more confidence. \u201cI think there\u2019s still a lot of room to grow, for sure. I think it was pretty solid. You can always get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
McTavish, though, recorded only two shots on goal in Game 1 and did not record a point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Coming off a high-flying first-round series against the Edmonton Oilers, the Anaheim Ducks\u2019 high-octane attack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,824,165,164,404,8614],"class_list":["post-300481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-nhl","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300481","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=300481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}