{"id":301263,"date":"2026-05-05T19:35:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/301263\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T19:35:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:35:28","slug":"anaheim-ducks-face-vegas-golden-knights-in-playoff-series-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/301263\/","title":{"rendered":"Anaheim Ducks Face Vegas Golden Knights in Playoff Series Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Anaheim Ducks travel to T-Mobile Arena to face the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday, May 4, 2026, marking the first time these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.harianbasis.co\/en\/tag\/pacific-division\" title=\"Pacific Division\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pacific Division<\/a> rivals have met in the postseason. Anaheim enters the second-round matchup following a series victory over the defending Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers.<\/p>\n<p>Vegas hosts the series opener after defeating the Utah Mammoth in their first-round appearance. According to The Hockey News, the series marks a significant milestone as it is the first time since the Golden Knights&#8217; inaugural season that both franchises have qualified for the playoffs simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p>Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville addressed the challenges posed by the top-seeded Golden Knights during a press conference. He emphasized the necessity of a strong start and maintaining consistency throughout the upcoming games.<\/p>\n<p>            &#13;<\/p>\n<p>                            <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/xrmpz28bEG.jpeg\" alt=\"Colorado Avalanche Defeat Minnesota Wild in High Scoring Playoff Opener\" width=\"75\" height=\"75\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                &#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re a good hockey team,&#8221; said Joel Quenneville, Ducks head coach. &#8220;They\u2019ve got balance, they skate, they&#8217;re big, they go to the net, they defend pretty well, they play as a group of five in all zones, they seem to be connected. Not a lot of holes. I think that we\u2019ve got to be at our best. We&#8217;re gonna have to make sure that we start the series (hard). Every game&#8217;s going to be important that we play consistently, we can&#8217;t give up leads. When I say leads, we can&#8217;t give up basically chasing a game\u2014like we saw most of the year and in that last round as well\u2014to have success. So, let&#8217;s make sure our starts are going to be better.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ducks forward Mason McTavish expressed readiness for the high-stakes matchup against a veteran Vegas roster. The Ducks are currently participating in their first playoff berth in eight years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody\u2019s really excited,&#8221; said Mason McTavish, Ducks Forward. &#8220;We\u2019ve got a great Vegas team we\u2019re gonna be playing, so I&#8217;m just excited for that challenge. They\u2019ve got a lot of great players and so do we, so it should be a great series and we&#8217;re looking forward to it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>            &#13;<\/p>\n<p>                            <img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Y1QrLsqH5e.jpeg\" alt=\"Wedgewood and Wallstedt Set for Western Conference Goalie Duel\" width=\"75\" height=\"75\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                &#13;<\/p>\n<p>Anaheim&#8217;s roster depth receives a boost as Troy Terry is confirmed for Game 1 despite missing recent morning skates. Defenseman Radko Gudas also participated in Monday&#8217;s session, potentially returning to the lineup for the first time since the opening game of the previous round.<\/p>\n<p>The Golden Knights will see the return of former Duck William Karlsson, who has been sidelined since November with a lower-body injury. His return strengthens a Vegas center rotation that includes Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, and Nic Dowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Anaheim Ducks travel to T-Mobile Arena to face the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday, May 4, 2026,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,824,165,164,1719,120196,4626,8614],"class_list":["post-301263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-joel-quenneville","tag-nhl-game-1","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301263","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=301263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}