beckett sennecke

Beckett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson scored 42 seconds apart in the third period, Mikael Granlund had a goal and two assists, and the Ducks celebrated their first home playoff game in eight years with a 7-4 victory over the Edmonton Oilers and a 2-1 series lead on Friday night.

Jeffrey Viel and Jackson LaCombe also scored in the third and Lukas Dostal made 20 saves for the upstart Ducks, who have poured in 16 goals in three games to take an early lead in this first-round series against the two-time Western Conference champion Oilers. Mason McTavish and Alex Killorn scored early goals.

Backed by a raucous sellout crowd hungry for Orange County’s first playoff hockey since 2018, the Ducks overcame their season-long defensive shortcomings by outscoring the powerhouse Oilers even after Connor McDavid recorded his first points of the series.

Game 4 is Sunday night in Anaheim.

McDavid had a power-play goal in the third period and an assist for Edmonton. Vasily Podkolzin, Kasperi Kapanen and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins also scored, and Connor Ingram stopped 32 shots.

Appropriately for a defense-deficient series, the Ducks capitalized on two transition sequences early in the third to take control.

Moments after Sennecke ripped a wrist shot for the tiebreaking goal and the precocious rookie’s first playoff point, Carlsson clinically finished a textbook 2-on-1 rush with Troy Terry.

McDavid trimmed the Oilers’ deficit with a fortunate deflection off Pavel Mintyukov’s stick, but the Oilers superstar short-circuited another power play later in the third by cross-checking Tyson Hinds.

Viel then flipped home a backhand with 3:03 left to cap a strong game by the Ducks’ fourth line, and LaCombe lofted home an empty-net goal all the way from the Ducks’ goal line to seal Anaheim’s first home playoff victory since May 14, 2017, in the conference finals against Nashville.

The clubs split the series’ first two games in Edmonton, but the Ducks demonstrated they could stay with the playoff-tested Oilers despite the obvious deficiencies of an inexperienced group that allowed more goals this season than any other playoff team.

Anaheim rode the wave of crowd energy and dominated play early in Game 3, putting 20 shots on Ingram in the first period. Killorn tied it for Anaheim in the second with his 39th career playoff goal.

Oilers forwards Adam Henrique and Jason Dickinson missed Game 3 with injuries.

John Carlson scored three goals for the first hat trick of his 17-year NHL career, and the Ducks ended their six-game losing streak with an emphatic 6-1 victory over the San José Sharks on Thursday night at Honda Center.

Leo Carlsson, Alex Killorn and Frank Vatrano also scored and Beckett Sennecke had two assists for the Ducks, who jumped to a 4-0 lead and dominated their Pacific Division rivals for their first win since March 26.

Carlson scored two power-play goals in the third period, connecting with 5:57 left to secure the first hat trick of his 1,156-game career. The veteran defenseman has been exactly what the Ducks needed when they acquired him at the trade deadline, scoring 12 points in 13 games while steadying the back end for one of the NHL’s worst defensive teams.

Lukas Dostal made 16 saves, but the Ducks fell 7:20 short of their first shutout in 160 games since last season’s opener on Oct. 12, 2024 — also against San José.

Shakir Mukhamadullin scored and Yaroslav Askarov stopped 27 shots for the Sharks, who had won five of seven to surge into playoff contention.

Carlsson put the Ducks ahead less than three minutes after the opening faceoff, driving the net and finishing for his 28th goal.

Carlson scored only his second goal in a Ducks uniform later in the first, blasting it home around Sennecke’s screen. San Jose didn’t get its first shot on goal until 13 minutes into the period.

Killorn tapped in a pass from Sennecke off a two-on-one rush for his 14th goal in the second.

Neither team was called for a penalty until San José’s Collin Graf was binned for hooking with 10:20 to play, and Carlson fired home his second goal on the ensuing power play.

Vatrano scored only his second goal since Dec. 7 in the waning minutes.

Up next for the Ducks: vs. Vancouver at Honda Center on Sunday.

Troy Terry scored on a breakaway 1:29 into overtime for his second goal of the game after Mikael Granlund tied it late in regulation and the Ducks rallied to defeat the Buffalo Sabres 6-5 on Sunday night.

Anaheim ended Buffalo’s seven-game road winning streak when Tage Thompson couldn’t keep in the puck in the Ducks’ zone and Terry held on a 2-on-0 break to score on a backhander.

Granlund tied the score at 5 with 1:44 remaining in the third period on a power play with Ville Husso pulled for an extra attacker.

Chris Kreider and Jackson LaCombe had power-play goals in the first period, Beckett Sennecke also scored, Husso made 24 saves and the Ducks have won consecutive games as part of a four-game points streak.

Alex Lyon had his 10-game road winning streak — tied for the third-longest by a goaltender in NHL history — snapped after giving up six goals on 33 shots. That included giving up goals to Sennecke and Terry on two of the Ducks’ four shots in the second period.

Alex Tuch, Josh Doan, Jack Quinn, Owen Power and Zach Benson scored for the Sabres, who extended their franchise-record road points streak to 14 games. It was their second loss in the last 14 games overall.

Lyon hadn’t lost a road start since Dec. 8, when Buffalo was last in the Eastern Conference with a 2-9-2 record outside of upstate New York. The Sabres had since won 20 of 24 road games as part of an astonishing turnaround that has them set to end the longest playoff drought in the NHL and on track to claim a first division title since 2009-10.

A victory for Lyon would have tied San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov in 2009-10 and Minnesota’s Devan Dubnyk in 2014-15 for the longest undefeated road run in league history.