ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 In Game 4, the Anaheim Ducks showed they\u2019re not ready to have their fun return to the postseason end quietly.<\/p>\n
Four different goal-scorers powered the Ducks and they never trailed in a 4-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights at Honda Center on Sunday, which evened the second-round series 2-2. Game 5 is Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great rebound, a good resilient game,\u201d Ducks forward Alex Killorn said. \u201cI think there was a lot more urgency tonight. And it\u2019s kind of the way the playoffs go. Like, you don\u2019t ever want to lose two in a row at home. You don\u2019t want to go down 3-1 in a series. So, it\u2019s huge win.<\/p>\n
\u201cMade some adjustments. That\u2019s just what playoffs is. They had a great game last game. We had a good game tonight. And we expect it to be a really good series going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ducks got the first goal for only the third time in their 10 games in this postseason. Beckett Sennecke, a Calder Trophy finalist after a 23-goal, 60-point rookie season, gave them the lead at 8:43 of the first. Pavel Dorofeyev answered Sennecke\u2019s power-play tally with one of his own on a rebound finish for a 1-1 tie less than two minutes later.<\/p>\n
Anaheim took the lead back late in the first as Mikael Granlund converted Jeffrey Viel\u2019s setup pass when his shot was deflected by Vegas forward Cole Smith, but the resulting change-up appeared to fool Golden Knights goalie Carter Hart. The Golden Knights forged another tie four minutes into the second period when William Karlsson took a hit to make a great pass to Brett Howden, who scored his team-leading seventh goal, which tied Minnesota\u2019s Matt Boldy and Carolina\u2019s Logan Stankoven for the overall playoff lead.<\/p>\n
From there, the Ducks took charge. Killorn scored Anaheim\u2019s second power-play goal late in the middle period for a 3-2 lead. After a successful Anaheim penalty kill to open the third, Ian Moore pushed the advantage to 4-2 with a successful shot from the point that found a hole between Hart\u2019s blocker and right pad.<\/p>\n
Tomas Hertl scored a late goal for Vegas.<\/p>\n
Animosity ratcheted up<\/p>\n
After a relatively calm first three games, the animosity on the ice was clearly elevated on Sunday night. It\u2019s no surprise, given everything on the line, but there were noticeably more post-whistle scrums and hijinks in this one.<\/p>\n
Vegas\u2019 Dylan Coghlan and Anaheim\u2019s Ross Johnston were each called for interference in the first period for playing the body away from the play. Bruising Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb went to the box for cross-checking Cutter Gauthier head-first into the boards behind the net, and Sennecke was called for cross-checking Nic Dowd just as the second period expired.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first playoff series between these sides, so it took some time for the temperature to heat up, but it clearly has, and it sets up a fascinating best-of-three series from this point on. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it probably will as the series goes on,\u201d McNabb said. \u201cThat\u2019s usually how that goes. They came out desperate, and I thought we played a decent game. We had some good looks and didn\u2019t cash in, so we move on.\u201d \u2014Jesse Granger<\/p>\n
Ducks\u2019 power play awakens<\/p>\n
The Golden Knights didn\u2019t back off from their physical play, which was particularly noticeable and effective in their Game 3 victory. This time, the Ducks made them pay for their misdeeds.<\/p>\n
Vegas brought an air-tight penalty kill into Game 4, as it had erased 26 of 27 short-handed situations, including all 11 of Anaheim\u2019s power plays in this series. The Ducks broke through with a power-play goal in each of the first two periods, taking advantage of an interference penalty by Dylan Coghlan and a slashing minor by Cole Smith.<\/p>\n
It was the so-called second unit that did the damage. Sennecke scored for the third straight game as he beat Hart after the Ducks generated multiple opportunities on their first advantage. Killorn then took the puck to the net in the second and flipped a puck through Hart. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a big focus for us in video the past couple of days since the last game,\u201d Sennecke said. \u201cIt was nice to kind of see a couple of those get in and get our power play rolling again.\u201d \u2014Eric Stephens<\/p>\n
Ducks\u2019 lineup changes<\/p>\n
The insertion of Mason McTavish back into the Anaheim lineup wasn\u2019t the only notable change coach Joel Quenneville made for Game 4. Olen Zellweger made his first appearance in these playoffs and became the 15th different Ducks player to make his playoff debut. Zellweger had a contribution as well, with a secondary assist on Moore\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n
Quenneville had gone with Tyson Hinds on the left side of his third defense pairing because of his size edge over the 5-foot-10 Zellweger, but with the Ducks only scoring six goals in the first three games and wanting a little more activation from the blue line, the 22-year-old Zellweger\u2019s speed and puck-moving brought that element. The Ducks got their blueliners more involved offensively from the first minute of Game 4.<\/p>\n
Zellweger played 76 games for Anaheim during the regular season and had seven goals and 15 assists while averaging almost 17 minutes. He was paired with Moore, who was put back on defense after playing his first seven playoff games at right wing. Moore took the spot of Drew Helleson, whom Quenneville said is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just tried to go out and play simple,\u201d said Zellweger, who played 11 minutes, 52 seconds. \u201cJump in where I can. I thought me and Mooresy read off each other well so it\u2019s good.\u201d \u2014Stephens<\/p>\n
Tortorella goes Saad over Smith<\/p>\n
With Mark Stone out with a lower-body injury, Vegas coach John Tortorella had to choose between veteran wingers Reilly Smith and Brandon Saad to replace him in the lineup. He went with Saad, who hadn\u2019t seen action since April 11, over Smith, who played all six games in Vegas\u2019 first-round series against Utah.<\/p>\n
Saad hadn\u2019t played since the regular season, but has 111 games of playoff experience over his nine-year career, including eight games last season with Vegas. He had a relatively quiet night. There were a few times he was noticeable using his speed to get in on the forecheck, but he didn\u2019t record a shot on goal.<\/p>\n
Vegas\u2019 third line of Saad, Hertl and Keegan Kolesar played the fewest minutes of any trio, and was outshot 4-1 by the Ducks. Hertl was able to score late with the six-on-five unit. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think they gave us some good minutes,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cThe big guy there is Tommy (Hertl). He\u2019s seeing all of the power-play time. He\u2019s a good faceoff guy. He\u2019s the one that I think needs to kick in here, and hopefully him scoring a goal there is going to help him. We\u2019ll see.\u201d \u2014Granger<\/p>\n
Vegas\u2019 top line struggles<\/p>\n
The Golden Knights top line, centered by Jack Eichel, struggled to generate much of anything on Sunday night. They were without Stone, who was replaced on the left wing by Pavel Dorofeyev, and spent more time defending than attacking.<\/p>\n
\u201cStone is a big part of our team,\u201d Tortorella said. \u201cWe miss him, period, as far as his presence and as far as his play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistically, Eichel has been fine in this postseason. He\u2019s tied for team lead with Mitch Marner with 13 points, and had two assists in Game 4, but he has only scored once and hasn\u2019t been impactful enough for Vegas at five-on-five.<\/p>\n
The Golden Knights have survived without Eichel bringing his A-game to this point, mostly because Marner and Howden have been so strong, but for this team to advance, they will eventually need him to be the puck-dominator he\u2019s proven to be in the past. \u2014Granger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 In Game 4, the Anaheim Ducks showed they\u2019re not ready to have their fun return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,824,165,164,404,8614],"class_list":["post-310085","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\/310085","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=310085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}