LAS VEGAS \u2014 Ivan Barbashev had just put the puck into an open net for his latest clutch playoff goal for the Vegas Golden Knights. Anaheim Ducks coach Joel Quenneville was furious and his players were mystified.<\/p>\n
In Anaheim\u2019s view, the game-winning play in Vegas\u2019 3-1 victory in Game 1 on Monday night should never have happened.<\/p>\n
Quenneville expected an icing call with five minutes left in the third period of a tie game when Barbashev, well short of the center red line, dumped the puck deep into the Anaheim zone and Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe beat Golden Knights forward Jack Eichel to it. Instead, linesperson Bevan Mills waved off what the Ducks strongly felt was icing.<\/p>\n
From there, Vegas\u2019 Pavel Dorofeyev intercepted LaCombe\u2019s puck play off the boards, then cut through LaCombe and Leo Carlsson to feed Barbashev as he crashed the net. Barbashev scored with 4:58 remaining in regulation to stun the Ducks, who had tied the game 1-1 just 65 seconds earlier, after LaCombe\u2019s terrific play to set up Mikael Granlund for a goal.<\/p>\n
Instead of a Vegas game-winning goal, the Ducks thought there should have been had a faceoff in the Vegas zone, an opportunity to gain possession and possibly break the tie in a tense Game 1 at T-Mobile Arena. Instead, Quenneville screamed at on-ice officials from the bench, to no avail.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe (had) just scored,\u201d a fuming Quenneville said after Mitch Marner\u2019s empty-net goal sealed Vegas\u2019 victory. \u201cIt was a huge call, and it was an easy call.\u201d<\/p>\n
As is standard practice in the NHL, the on-ice officials declined to speak with a reporter from The Athletic who inquired outside their locker room after the game. LaCombe said that as the play developed, he was looking to get a signal from the linesperson. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to hear his voice or see what he does,\u201d the Ducks\u2019 defenseman said.<\/p>\n
The most likely explanation for the wave-off is that, after Barbashev\u2019s dump-in, LaCombe might have hesitated, if only for a fateful moment, while Eichel went hard after the puck.<\/p>\n
From there, LaCombe said, \u201cAs soon as I heard him wave it off, I just made a mistake. I made a soft play at the wall, and I just can\u2019t do that. It\u2019s not a good play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ducks goalie Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l said, \u201cHonestly, I saw they just chipped the puck in and I didn\u2019t really even see if they had a hand up or (not). At that point, I really didn\u2019t know. I was just trying to focus for the next play.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the Golden Knights scored, Quenneville reached over a couple of his players on the bench and gestured toward the officials in an irate manner. He said he didn\u2019t get any explanation from them.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly, I disagreed with the call,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cIt was clearly icing. But their guys stopped skating, which really made me annoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Golden Knights capitalized in a game in which Anaheim created more chances and was the better team, as Golden Knights coach John Tortorella said, but were stymied by goalie Carter Hart and his 33-save effort. And Barbashev came up big, with his third goal in seven playoff games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just tried to put the puck deep and then I think I saw Jack on the far side going through,\u201d Barbashev said. \u201cI thought for a second he beat (LaCombe). That\u2019s why they\u2019ve waved it off. Jack just put pressure on him. They turned it over and Pav made a great play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did the non-call affect how the Ducks played on the subsequent play that led to the goal?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think sometimes you kind of let up,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cWe looked like we could have slowed down playing. I haven\u2019t really looked at it afterward. I was just upset about the call at that time. But that was the play for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaCombe said, \u201cAt the time I thought it was an (icing), but you just got to keep playing hockey. Doesn\u2019t mean I can make a soft play after that. That\u2019s how it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a night of huge swings for LaCombe, who has thrived in his first trip to the playoffs, less than three months after he won an Olympic gold medal with the United States. LaCombe was an extra as Team USA won gold, but heading into Monday, he\u2019d been everything for the Ducks in their return to the postseason after a seven-year absence.<\/p>\n
With Vegas clinging to a 1-0 lead in the third period \u2014 earned on Brett Howden\u2019s goal 3:14 into the second period \u2014 LaCombe took a pass from teammate John Carlson and took an open path toward the net. LaCombe moved the puck to his backhand and put it off Hart\u2019s pad, and then it bounced to Granlund, who slid it into the net to tie the game with 6:03 remaining.<\/p>\n
LaCombe recorded his team-leading 10th point of the playoffs, behind only Minnesota\u2019s Quinn Hughes (with 11) among all defensemen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Johnny made a good play and had some space down the wall,\u201d LaCombe said. \u201cAnd there was traffic down there. Just try to get it in the mix there and Granny had a great shot on the rebound.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that might have been the winning goal, had LaCombe not passed up a scoring chance in the second period that would haunt any player. It started when Ducks center Carlsson made a brilliant move as he hit the Vegas zone and sent a defender flying.<\/p>\n
After he created space for himself, Carlsson found LaCombe sitting unguarded below the hash marks inside the right circle. Hart had committed hard to his right, so LaCombe had the puck on his stick, with an open net to shoot into and tie the game. But instead, LaCombe tried to pass the puck to Troy Terry. By then, the Golden Knights recovered and broke up the play, and the Ducks never even got a shot on goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThought (Hart) kind of slid over,\u201d LaCombe said, \u201cand as soon as I fully turned my head around, he wasn\u2019t there and I already kind of made the decision to pass. It was just a stupid mistake. Yeah, want that one back. I didn\u2019t see it in time and just made the play too early.\u201d<\/p>\n
It could have been another special night for LaCombe. The 25-year-old blueliner logged a game-high 28 minutes, 7 seconds, and again looked like a composed, controlled leader of the Ducks\u2019 defense, if not the entire team. After the game, he showed leadership in the Anaheim locker room, repeatedly taking ownership of his mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have to say anything to him,\u201d Quenneville said of LaCombe passing up the scoring chance. \u201cI think we all knew he\u2019d take that back. Love to have that one back.\u201d<\/p>\n
As would the Ducks, when it comes to Game 1 \u2014 in more ways than one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Ivan Barbashev had just put the puck into an open net for his latest clutch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,824,165,164,404,8614],"class_list":["post-300646","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\/300646","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=300646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}