Lukas Dostal made 21 saves while leading the Anaheim Ducks to a 3-1 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday in Las Vegas, evening their best-of-seven Western Conference second-round playoff series at one win each.
Beckett Sennecke, Leo Carlsson and Jansen Harkins scored for the Ducks.
The series now shifts to Anaheim for Game 3 on Friday and Game 4 on Sunday.
Mark Stone scored a late power-play goal and Carter Hart finished with 25 saves for Vegas, which lost in regulation at home to the Ducks for only the fourth time (16-4-1) in franchise history.
Vegas killed off eight minutes of penalties in the first half of a scoreless opening period, including 1:37 of a 5-on-3 after Jack Eichel picked up a four-minute double minor for high-sticking Mikael Granlund.
The Ducks, who scored on eight of their 16 power-play chances while defeating the Edmonton Oilers in six games in their first-round matchup, have yet to score with the extra man in the series against the Golden Knights. Anaheim is now 0-for-9 on the power play.
“I thought the guys played terrific,” Dostal said. “… They were battling out there. Sometimes we were all swimming in the crease, just lying out there. I was playing more soccer goalie than hockey goalie out there. But they didn’t go in, and (my teammates) did a helluva job.”
Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville added, “I thought defensively we played one of our better games all year. We had good puck pursuit. We had some good shifts in the second period with possession. I thought we had a good start to the game. A lot of positives out there.”
Anaheim took a 1-0 lead midway through the second period on Sennecke’s second goal of the playoffs. Jeffrey Viel picked up the primary assist, stealing the puck from Vegas defenseman Kaedan Korczak along the boards behind the net and then passing to Sennecke in the low slot. The Calder Trophy finalist for rookie of the year, who scored 23 goals in the regular season, then chipped a shot past Hart’s glove side.
The Ducks extended the lead to 2-0 at the 6:36 mark of the third period on Carlsson’s fourth goal of the playoffs. Troy Terry set up the score with a crossing pass from the left circle to Carlsson alone on the backdoor by the right post. Carlsson then roofed a wrist shot past Hart’s glove side.
Vegas pulled Hart with four minutes remaining for an extra attacker and Harkins sealed the win with an empty-netter 30 seconds later, his first goal since New Year’s Eve against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Golden Knights spoiled Dostal’s shutout bid with just 5.6 seconds on to go when Stone redirected a Eichel shot from along the right boards for his third goal of the playoffs.
“Give their goalie credit,” Vegas coach John Tortorella said. “He made a lot of good saves in the third period.”
Looking ahead in the series, Tortorella added, “I think we’re always concerned no matter what. Win or lose, coaches are always looking to pronounce the good things, work on the bad things. Yeah, we’ve got some things to work on.”
–Field Level Media
