LAS VEGAS — The Golden Knights have been here before.
They’ve won more playoff games than any team in the NHL since 2017. This core group of players has been through the extreme highs and lows that the postseason brings and has managed them well.
Wednesday night’s 3-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks was the sixth straight time the Golden Knights have lost Game 2 of a second-round playoff series, so these are far from uncharted waters.
All of that being said, this game felt very different.
Vegas has suffered plenty of postseason defeats over the last nine seasons. Most were nail-biters. Even those that weren’t felt like the team was a play or two away from a better result. That wasn’t at all how Wednesday’s game looked.
Through two games in this series, the Ducks have looked like the faster, stronger and better hockey team. They’ve dominated possession and dictated the pace of play.
The Golden Knights were fortunate to escape Monday’s Game 1 with a victory. They were drastically outskated by the Ducks in that contest, but got excellent goaltending from Carter Hart and were opportunistic on their limited chances to sneak out a 3-1 win. After that game, coach John Tortorella remarked, “I think the biggest thing is we need to be honest with ourselves. We’ll look at some of the stuff and I think we have a better game coming up.”
It didn’t happen.
The Golden Knights committed eight minutes worth of penalties in the first six minutes of the game on Wednesday. They spent the better part of the first period killing penalties, and the remainder of the game looking like they were doing the same despite playing at even strength.
“We got the kills when we needed them,” captain Mark Stone said. “We got them done, but we just couldn’t get back on the saddle and get anything really cooking. We didn’t get a ton of sustained o-zone time, which is what we need a little bit more of.”
Anaheim generated 29 shot attempts in the opening period and outshot Vegas 13-3. If not for Hart’s play in net, the game could’ve been out of reach before the first intermission. He kept it scoreless for 31 minutes, but the Ducks eventually broke through with a goal by Beckett Sennecke on a one-timer from right in front of the Vegas net.
The Golden Knights have been through this before with little cause for concern, knowing the level of play needed to advance is well within their reach. After 120 minutes of hockey in this series, that level looks further away than usual.
“I think we’re always concerned, no matter what,” Tortorella said. “Win or lose, coaches are always looking to pronounce the good things and work on the bad things. Yeah, we have some things to work on.”
The Ducks have looked fast, which isn’t a surprise. They’ve zipped through the neutral zone, attacked the Golden Knights with speed, and shown the ability to turn giveaways into immediate scoring chances.
“There are lots of things that you can do, but (we’re) probably just trying to make stuff out of nothing,” Stone said. “They’re a good transition team. You can’t feed into their transition, so we have to do a better job of playing a little bit more below their goal line.”
What has been surprising about Anaheim’s speed, though, is how they’ve used it without the puck. The Ducks aren’t stout defensively. They allowed more goals in the regular season than any team that qualified for the playoffs. But through the first two games of this series, they’ve used their skating to disrupt Vegas’ passing.
“It was a similar game (to Game 1), I’d say,” Vegas forward William Karlsson remarked. “Especially in the second (period), they had the momentum, and they kind of kept us down in our zone, tired us out, and got rewarded.”
Anaheim’s high-paced pressure, combined with potent counterstrike ability, is creating hesitation.
“I feel like we’ve sometimes been a little too scared with the puck, but obviously we have to be smart about where we put the puck too,” Karlsson said.
Despite how well the Ducks played, the Golden Knights entered the third period only down a goal. They came out of the second intermission with noticeably more pep in their step and put together a few shifts in the offensive zone.
Karlsson had Vegas’ best scoring chance midway through the period, one-timing a puck on net from the slot, but Anaheim’s Lukáš Dostál slid across to make the best of his 21 saves and preserve the lead.
“I do think we played better in the third, but we couldn’t squeeze one in,” Karlsson said. “It’s there, so we have to look at what we did well in the third, and bring that to the next game.”
Moments after that save, Leo Carlsson extended Anaheim’s lead to two.
Leo Carlsson’s third-period goal gave the Ducks a two-goal lead in what ended a 3-1 win. (Stephen R. Sylvanie / Imagn Images)
Vegas is an experienced group with a history of impressive composure at this time of year. That was evident in the dressing room after the loss.
“I thought there were some really good minutes within the game, and some minutes where we’re just not there,” Tortorella said. “But that’s why you play a series. I have full trust that we’re going to find our way, and try to play our best game. That certainly hasn’t happened in this series, but we’ll find our way and get there.”
It’s a sentiment we’ve heard plenty of times over the last nine years. From Gerard Gallant in 2018 and 2019, from Peter DeBoer in 2020 and 2021, and from Bruce Cassidy over the last three seasons.
But this time, it certainly feels like the Golden Knights have fewer positives to draw from, and more ground to make up. In nine years, they haven’t been outskated to the degree they were on Wednesday (or on Monday, for that matter).
Stone remains confident the Golden Knights’ best game is coming, and pointed to Friday’s dominant 5-1 win to close out the Utah Mammoth in Game 6 of their first-round series.
“I don’t think it’s too far,” he said. “We’re two games removed from probably our best game that we’ve played, or one of our best games all season. This obviously hasn’t been our best these last two, but the good news is we can improve. It’s not like we’re playing our best hockey, and we’re at 1-1, so we have to figure it out.”
Stone, Karlsson and Tortorella all pointed to the lack of sustained offensive zone time as the primary area for improvement. The Golden Knights spent much of the six games against Utah controlling that area. By failing to earn time attacking, they’re unable to exploit Anaheim’s biggest weakness — defending.
“We’re going to have to get some big plays,” Tortorella said. “There were some almosts, and we just didn’t complete the next play.”
Vegas hasn’t gotten the most out of many of its biggest stars in this postseason. Mitch Marner has led the way, with three goals and six assists. Jack Eichel has a goal and nine assists, but also hasn’t been as dynamic and strong on the puck as usual. Stone scored Vegas’ lone goal on Wednesday — a meaningless one in the closing seconds to make it 3-1 — and must be more impactful moving forward.
More concerning, Tomas Hertl hasn’t scored a goal in 28 games, and has seen his ice time and responsibilities diminish. The team’s leading goal scorer, Pavel Dorofeyev, had a hat trick in Game 5 against Utah but has also seen his ice time cut, sometimes drastically.
Even in the first round, when the Golden Knights were producing, it felt like exorbitant amounts of offensive zone time were required to generate that production. That’s a concern against an Anaheim team that has given them very little of it.
It’s the Golden Knights. They have an inevitable nature to them when it comes to finding ways to win in the playoffs. They’ve gone on to win four of the last five second-round series after losing Game 2, so there’s a chance they find their game, and these two contests are viewed as a mere speed bump.
There’s also a chance this up-and-coming Ducks team is fast and strong enough to keep Vegas on its heels. Through two games, it feels like a sizable gap the Golden Knights need to close as they head to Honda Center for Games 3 and 4.
“They split here,” Tortorella said. “We’ve got to go in and try to get a game out of there. We’re going to keep our composure and go about our business. As I’ve said, this team has always been really good in this type of situation, so I have full confidence that we’re going to try to find our way.”
