ANAHEIM, Calif. – Soak that one in, Orange Country. You earned it.
It was a game eight years in the making, and the Anaheim Ducks made each and every minute of those eight years in the wilderness worth it in a 7-4 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Friday.
It was Anaheim’s first home Stanley Cup Playoff game since April 14, 2018–a mere 2,932 days ago–and Honda Center stretched to its standing-room-sellout seams with 16,735 fans pent up on nearly nine full years of longing for a home playoff victory.
They let it all out to spur the Ducks to a dominant opening 20 minutes, where Anaheim registered 12 of the game’s first 15 shots, hit everything in sight and despite the Oilers netting the opening goal, took a 2-1 lead and a 20-7 shot advantage into the first intermission.
“We couldn’t even hear ourselves,” Jeffrey Viel said of the first-period crowd noise. “Great atmosphere. Definitely got us going right from the start.”
Edmonton negated that advantage, but that didn’t deter the rowdy patrons, which continued to spur the Ducks forward and nearly blew the roof off in the third period. Becket Sennecke put Anaheim ahead just over two minutes into the final frame, and only 42 seconds later, Leo Carlsson gave the Ducks a necessary two-goal cushion that shook the foundations of Honda Center en route to the win.
“We came out kind of humming in the third period there, and it was all because of them,” Sennecke said. “It sounded like an army out there almost. They’ve been waiting eight years for this, nine years for a win. It was pretty special.”
Anaheim had not won a home playoff game since Game 2 of the 2017 Western Conference Final, and with this win in Game 3 of the 2027 first-round, the Ducks now have a series lead for the first time since beating these same Oilers in Game 7 of the 2017 second round.
“The best experience I’ve had in Honda Center, for sure,” Carlsson said. “Helps us a lot, absolutely.”
How Did It Take This Long?
However many of those at the Pond on Friday that were also in that building in that Game 2 of the 2018 first round against the San Jose Sharks, it’s hard to imagine that any of them thought that was going to be the last Stanley Cup Playoff action they would experience for eight years.
Anaheim was the higher seed in that series, and even though they were shutout in that Game 1 and couldn’t muster anything in the third period of that Game 2, surely the Ducks would snap in and win a game in San Jose to at least force a Game 5 back in Orange County?
Sure, there were some injuries on defense, but that team still had Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Ryan Kesler, Jakob Silfverberg and Rickard Rakell up front. They went to the Western Conference Final the season before and were in their sixth straight playoff season and 11th in the previous 13 years. That group certainly had some fight in them still?
Well, that Ducks team got beat like a drum in Game 3 in San Jose, 8-1, and could only score one more in Game 4 for an ignominious sweep at the hands of their NorCal rivals.
Still, that’s just one bad playoff series. That Ducks roster still had a winning pedigree. With that veteran core and some young additions, Anaheim would make a run to the playoffs again… right?
Not quite. The Ducks finished 10 points out of a playoff spot. Getzlaf led the team in scoring with a meager 48 points in 67 games. Perry missed the first five months of the season after knee surgery and would be bought out in the summer. Kesler had eight points in 60 games, got hip surgery in the summer and never played another NHL game.
Anaheim tried again with the same core of Getzlaf, Rakell, Silfverberg, Cam Fowler, Hampus Lindholm and Adam Henrique, but not a single Duck crossed the 50-point plateau in the pandemic-shortened season.
Anaheim was the first team beyond the cutline for the makeshift Stanley Cup Playoff qualification round played in the bubble environment in August of 2020.
In the following pandemic-delayed season with the odd schedule and cobbled together division? Nothing better, as the Ducks finished 20 points out of a playoff spot and in last place in a division for the first time since 2012.
However, that season saw the debuts of Lukas Dostal, Mason McTavish, Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale. Maybe the future of the franchise was finally clear? Brighter days would be ahead?
Anaheim jumped up to 76 points in the 2021-22 season, which was only enough to be 21 points out of the playoffs and ahead of only the inaugural Seattle Kraken season in the Pacific Division basement. That season also saw the arrival of Pat Verbeek and finally, mercifully, the kick in of the full teardown and rebuild.
After years of tortuously hanging on to meager successes, the Ducks bottomed out with the worst season in franchise history in 2022-23 and the second-worst campaign in 2023-24.
However, the rewards for those two floundering seasons? Your go-ahead and game-winning goalscorers from Friday night: 2023 No. 2 overall pick–Leo Carlsson–and 2024 No. 3 overall pick–Beckett Sennecke.
Obviously, the rest is lived in and living history, as the Verbeek has built the Ducks into a contender whose story is still being written.
Leo. Carlsson. And this place will be lucky if the roof is still standing tonight.
— Zach Cavanagh (@ZachCav) April 25, 2026
Ducks with a two goal lead, as Terry slips it to Carlsson on the rush, and Leo slithers around the Oilers defense to dunk the backhand.
5-3 Ducks. Playoff Chicken.@SportingTrib | #FlyTogether pic.twitter.com/ZB8eAAb7wN
Ride the Wave
As Joel Quenneville mentioned earlier in the series, Ducks fans have tasted success. They’ve seen the top of the mountain and know what playoff hockey is all about.
It is those eight years in the darkness that made fans appreciate the run of success that preceded it, and it is those eight years in the darkness that make Friday’s return feel bigger, louder, brighter.
Honda Center has obviously hosted its share of big time moments: Paul Kariya’s “off the floor, on the board” goal in the 2003 Cup Final, the Comeback on Katella in 2017 against the Oilers, the 2007 Stanley Cup Championship.
All great singular moments in their own regard, but there may not have been a better full-game playoff crowd in Ducks history than Friday’s Game 3.
Not a sense of nerves–as Tim Washe shared an old coach’s adage on Friday, “nerves are for the unprepared,” and these Ducks fans have had quite some time to ready themselves for the occasion–no grand stakes on the line and no expectations beyond simply competing.
No, the Game 3 crowd was pure energy–a wild, unrestrained electric charge, which the Ducks rode to the most goals in a single game in franchise history.
Can Game 4’s crowd match up on Sunday, as the Ducks seek their first 3-1 lead in a series since the 2015 second round against Calgary? Likely not, but that’s a Sunday problem.
For now, Anaheim fans, bask in this one, and ride the wave. As these Ducks climb back up the ladder, it may not be this pure again for a long time.