LAS VEGAS — T-Mobile Arena sits just off the Las Vegas Strip, not far from a faux Manhattan skyline, a pyramid and a casino made to look like a castle.
The line separating illusion from reality can be a thin one in Sin City, where the Ducks opened the second round of the playoffs Monday intent on proving their first-round victory over the Edmonton Oilers was more than a facade. It didn’t go well, with Brett Howden’s goal early in the second period and Ivan Barbashev’s tiebreaking tally late in the third period giving the Vegas Golden Knights a 3-1 victory in the best-of-seven series.
Mitch Marner added an empty-net goal with six seconds to play to end any hope of a Ducks comeback. Mikael Granlund scored for the Ducks with six minutes left in the game. Game 2 is in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
The Ducks were a shadow of the team that eliminated Edmonton. After averaging a playoff-high 4.33 goals a game, the Ducks were stymied by Vegas goalie Carter Hart, who turned away 33 shots. And after converting eight of 16 power-play opportunities against the Oilers, the Ducks were shut out in four chances against the Golden Knights.
Although the Ducks played their best defensive game of the postseason, giving up just 21 shots before the empty-netter, the balanced Knights gave them few good scoring opportunities, especially on the power play.
The Ducks, who needed to use their superior speed to counter the Knights’ edge in experience, pushed the pace in the opening period but got nothing to show for it. The Knights took the lead less than four minutes into the second period when Howden made a dash to the edge of the crease to deflect in a pass from Marner for his fifth goal of the playoffs.
Howden had a chance to double the lead less than six minutes before the second intermission, but he whiffed trying to bat a loose puck in an open net from the right side.
Mark Stone had an opportunity to score on the power play with less than nine minutes left, but Ducks’ goalie Lukas Dostal made a spectacular save to keep it a one-goal score. And that paid off when Granlund put the puck through Brayden McNabb’s legs 2½ minutes later.
Defenseman Jackson LaCombe, who passed up a prime scoring chance earlier, made that goal, driving hard from the top of the left circle to the crease and backhanding the puck off Hart that bounced toa wide-open Granlund in the center of the right circle.
The tie was shortlived, however, with Barbashev finishing a pass from Pavel Dorofeyev for the go-ahead goal. Ducks players and coaches vehemently protested, believing officials missed an icing call before the goal.
The Ducks mounted a furious rally after pulling Dostal with about two minutes to play, but that ended with Marner clearing the puck the length of the ice into the empty net.
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