power play

The carriage has turned back into a pumpkin, the ballgown is once again just tattered clothing and all the horses have gone back to being mice.

The Ducks’ Cinderella run through the NHL playoffs came to an end Thursday in a 5-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series. And the end came well before midnight, with goals by Mitch Marner and Brett Howden in the first 8½ minutes giving Vegas a commanding lead before many in the late-arriving weeknight crowd had made it to their seats at the Honda Center.

The Golden Knights will move on to the Western Conference final with the Colorado Avalanche next week while the Ducks will move on to summer. But it’s the team’s latest start on the offseason since 2017, the last time the Ducks made it to the second round of the playoffs. So even if the glass slipper didn’t fit this time, the Ducks have reason to celebrate.

“I think our team, we learned, myself included, just how to play in those games,” said winger Troy Terry, the only remaining link to the Ducks’ last playoff team. “That’s kind of the difference in some of these games, a team like Vegas, learning how to manage those close games. It stings right now, but I think I speak for everyone that we’ll be hungry going into the summer.

“It was fun to play in this. It’s been a long time.”

Ducks center Leo Carlsson passes the puck as Vegas’ Shea Theodore defends during the second period.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

This team, after all, wasn’t supposed to be at the ball this long. Fourteen players on its roster had never been to the postseason before; most of them had never even played for a winning team in the NHL before. But the team’s youth and inexperience proved to be a strength, not a weakness.

They didn’t know they weren’t supposed to win in the playoffs, so they did, dispatching the Edmonton Oilers — who made the last two Stanley Cup finals — in the first round and outplaying the veteran Golden Knights, a playoff team in eight of the franchise’s nine seasons, throughout much of the second round.

Rookie Beckett Sennecke, just 20, had four goals and an assist in the six games with Vegas. Winger Cutter Gauthier, just 22, led the team with 12 points in his first trip to the playoffs. Defenseman Olen Zellwenger, also 22, had a goal and assist in his first two playoff games and Olympic gold medalist Jackson LaCombe, 25, led the team in ice time — and was third in points with 10 — in his first postseason.

That’s the core of the team going forward and the playoff experience they got this spring will be invaluable.

“We’ve got a super young core here,” Sennecke said. “We’re a fast team and we play with a lot of skill, a lot of pace. … The next few years are exciting.”

Ducks left wing Alex Killorn moves the puck ahead of Vegas right wing Keegan Kolesar in the first period.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“It doesn’t make this any easier,” added center Mikael Granlund, at 34 the second-oldest Duck to play Thursday. “Tonight was kind of the story of the season. In the first period we’re down three goals. In the regular season, we were able to come back. But in playoffs, it’s not easy.

“So yeah, there’s a lot of good signs in this team, but at the same time, it’s never easy.”

However, the fairy godmother’s spell wore off early in Game 6, which was just 62 seconds old when Vegas went ahead to stay.

Marner opened the scoring with a spectacular breakaway goal, skating on to William Karlssson’s two-line pass as he entered the offensive zone and beating LaCombe up the center of the ice to the crease. When he got there, he pulled up, turned his back to goalie Lukas Dostal, then shoved the puck just inside the right post for his seventh goal of the playoffs.

Howden doubled the lead with a shorthanded goal 7½ minutes later, finding miles of space just to the right of the goal and banging in a pass from Marner that split LaCombe and Alex Killorn. The goal was Howden’s eighth of the playoffs, temporarily giving him the NHL postseason lead, while the assist gave Marner 18 postseason points, also best in the league.

“I thought we had a really good vibe going in and felt good about guys being excited,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Couple of quick goals, and we certainly lost a lot of our excitement. That was tough.”

When Shea Theodore scored off a faceoff seconds into a power play late in the period, it gave the Golden Knights a 3-0 lead at the intermission with the goals coming on a power play, the penalty kill and with the teams at even strength.

The Ducks led the NHL with 26 comeback wins during the regular season, but against the poised and patient Golden Knights the deficit was too big. The Ducks left the ice to a chorus of boos after the period, though they came back to dominate the second period, getting the only score at 12:46 when Mikael Granlund notched his fifth goal of the playoffs on a power play, lining a snap shot into the side netting from the middle the left circle.

But the Ducks would get no closer, with Vegas icing the game on two third-period goals from Pavel Dorofeyev, who had four goals in the final two games. The first came off a turnover from the Ducks’ John Carlson deep in his defensive end 2:52 into the final period and the second on a shot from a difficult angle to the right of the goal that ricocheted in off Dostal with 6:28 left in the Ducks’ season.

The two goals gave Dorofeyev nine for the playoffs, passing Howden for the league lead.

“They worked for what they got,” Quenneville said of the Golden Knights. “They deserve to move on.”

LAS VEGAS — Perhaps you were a little surprised when the Ducks, who haven’t had a winning record in seven seasons, led the Pacific Division for most of the season, or when they made the playoffs for the first time since 2018, or when they eliminated the Edmonton Oilers — who played in the last two Stanley Cup Finals — in the first round of the playoffs this spring.

If you were surprised by any of that, wait until you hear what they’ve done now.

Because with a dominant 3-1 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday in Game 2 of a best-of-seven playoff series, the Ducks evened the series at a win apiece and wrested home-ice advantage away from the division champions. Now they come home for Game 3 on Friday with a strong wind at their backs in a series they were supposed to lose.

“We kept the momentum and we’re headed home, which is fantastic,” center Ryan Poehling said.

If the series goes a full seven games, the Ducks will play three of the last five game at home where — would it surprise you to learn? — they had the best home record in the division this season?

But it’s not just that the Ducks won, but how they won that’s important. The younger, speedier team has skated rings around the older — and frustrated — Golden Knights, who have made the playoffs eight times in nine years, winning a Stanley Cup in 2023. Two games into this series, however, the plodding Golden Knights have looked like they’re skating through quicksand at times and have really had no answer for Anaheim in this series.

“The way to beat them is just outpacing them,” Poehling said. “And it’s not just with speed. It’s how we play. Guys are supporting one another, and you saw that. Tonight was kind of a game plan of what we want to do to win, for sure.

Ducks forward Beckett Sennecke celebrates after scoring in the second period against the Golden Knights in Game 2 on Wednesday.

(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

“We didn’t like how Game 1 ended, but we liked our game. That’s hockey sometimes. You can play the right way, do all the right things, we end up losing.”

The Golden Knights won Game 1 when a blown icing call allowed them to score the go-ahead goal before adding an insurance goal into an empty net. So the Ducks made sure one play wouldn’t decide Game 2, taking their first lead of the series on a Beckett Sennecke goal midway through the second period.

“We had some great opportunities to score first,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “Finding a way to score first was important.”

The Ducks also scored second and third, with Leo Carlsson doubling the lead 6:36 into the third period before Jansen Harkins scored into an empty net with 3:30 to play to ice things. That didn’t end the drama though because the Ducks were six seconds away from their first shutout of the season when Vegas’ Mark Stone scored a power-play goal into an empty net.

For the Ducks, that goal spoiled nothing.

“It doesn’t matter,” goalie Lukas Dostal said. “It doesn’t matter how you win, where the score is. Obviously it’s always the cherry on the top. But it doesn’t really matter. We got a W and that’s all we focus on.”

Maybe. But after a regular season in which the Ducks gave up more than 3.5 goals a game, most of any playoff qualifier, the defensive effort was…. well, surprising.

And important.

“That’s not our tradition of playing that type of game. Low-scoring affair, when we score first and we’re leading throughout,” Quenneville said.

Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal protects the net in front of Vegas forward Tomas Hertl during the second period.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

But if the Ducks hope to make a long playoff run, that’s the blueprint they’ll have to follow.

“The only way you’re going to be successful in the playoffs is you’ve got to win games like tonight,” said Quenneville, whose three Stanley Cup wins with Chicago are the most by an active NHL coach. “We showed that it’s going to take everybody to play these type of games. And everybody contributed.”

“We’re picking a good time,” added defenseman Jacob Trouba “to play our best hockey.”

Still, the Ducks’ best hockey can get better. Anaheim was for 0 for Las Vegas on the power play, failing to score on nine opportunities with the man advantage in the two games — including an eight-minute stretch in the first period when Vegas had one, and sometimes two, players in the penalty box.

“We had some great chances on the power play,” said Quenneville, whose team scored on half of their 16 power-play chances in the first-round series with Edmonton. Vegas, however, has killed 19 straight penalties and 24 of 25 in the postseason.

Ducks forward Leo Carlsson scores past Vegas goaltender Carter Hart during the first period Wednesday.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

Yet that wasn’t good enough for the sweep at home, so the once-favored Golden Knights must break serve in Anaheim.

“They split here. We’ve got to go in and try to get a game out of there,” Vegas coach John Tortorella said. “We’re going to keep our composure and get about our business. This team has always been really good in these type of situations, so I have full confidence we’re going to find our way.”

If the Golden Knights fail to do that, they just might be in for a surprise.

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 Stanley Cup 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 tie-breaking 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, 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.

Vegas defenseman Rasmus Andersson celebrates after Mitch Marner’s empty-net goal in the final seconds of a 3-1 win over the Ducks on Monday.

(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

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 game. And that paid off when Granlund put the puck through Brayden McNabb’s legs 2½ minutes later.

The tie was short-lived, however, with Barbashev redirecting in 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.