ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Vegas Golden Knights knew they needed to start faster if they were going to get the upper hand in this second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series with the Anaheim Ducks.
Was 66 seconds fast enough?
That’s how long it took Shea Theodore to beat Lukas Dostal and get the Knights off on the right skate in Game 3 Friday night as they regained control of the series with a 6-2 win at the Honda Center.
Mitch Marner delivered a natural hat trick, scoring three goals over an 18-minute span to help mute the sellout crowd of 16,826. He remains a dominant player in the postseason for the Knights and he is the NHL’s leading scorer in the postseason with 13 points after a four-point performance Friday.
Game 4 is Sunday night and Vegas has regained home-ice advantage with its 2-1 series lead. The big question: will Mark Stone be available? The captain left the game in the first period with an apparent lower body injury on a non-contact play in the neutral zone and did not return, having played just seven shifts and only 4:24 in time on ice.
“We played better as a team tonight,” coach John Tortorella said. “We had good sticks. Blocked shots. But not all problems get solved with one game. We still have work to do.”
So how do you account for the turnaround from Game 2 to Game 3 for the Knights? The special teams are a big reason why. The penalty kill, which has been stellar the entire playoffs, has shut Anaheim's power play down. Through the first three games of this series, the Ducks are 0-for-11 with the man advantage. For the entire postseason, which is now at nine games, Vegas is 26 of 27 with its penalty killing units, headed by Marner and Nic Dowd.
Marner set up Brayden McNabb’s first-period shorthanded goal, then proceeded to put the puck in the net himself. His first goal which came with 4.6 seconds left in the first period gave Vegas a 3-0 lead and ultimately led to Joel Quenneville opting to give Dostal the rest of the night off was a big moment in the game and possibly the series.
Marner has been a handful in the postseason as he looks to shed the demons that haunted him during his time in Toronto. He’s playing with energy and intelligence and the Ducks are struggling to contain him.
“I always want to puck on my tape,” Marner said. “I always want to make plays.”
Tortorella used Marner on the wing with William Karlsson and Brett Howden and the line looked like it was in sync with one another. Howden capped the scoring with an empty net goal and he and Marner both have six goals to lead the NHL in the playoffs in that category.
It bears repeating that when Tortorella took over for Bruce Cassidy with eight games remaining in the regular season, he looked to Marner to be the guy he would lean on and rely upon to deliver. Marner has kept his end of the bargain and then some.
“I watched him over the years and he’s a hell of a hockey player,” Tortorella said of tying his fate to Marner. “He’s very cerebral and I don’t think he gives a s— what people think or say about him. I’m glad that he’s doing well.”
Marner said he's just focused on the present, not the past.
“At the end of the day you’re just trying to win games,” he said. “A lot of the guys are setting me up.”
Tortorella has been encouraging his defense to join the rush and take part offensively since he got to Vegas. Of course, seeing McNabb in a shorthanded situation deliver a goal was probably not something Torts had planned on. But nevertheless, the veteran blueliner came through to make it 2-0 after Marner set him up.
And while you’re playing with fire when you’re constantly taking visits to the penalty box, when your PK units are flourishing the way the Knights’ are, you can live with it.
Dowd remains elite, from winning defensive zone faceoffs to disrupting Anaheim passes to blocking shots. And his linemates Cole Smith and Colton Sissons continue to play solid, shut-down hockey, which is why you don’t see Tortorella messing with them.
He did mess with his defense pairings, opting for Dylan Coghlan for Kaedan Korczak to skate with Ben Hutton as his third D pair. Reilly Smith remained a healthy scratch and who knows when we’ll see him back on the ice?
Collectively, Vegas delivered a far better overall effort in Game 3 than it had in the first two games at T-Mobile Arena. The Knights forechecked better. They were faster and quicker to the puck than the Ducks. And Carter Hart continued his solid and sometimes sensational play in goal. He has obviously found his rhythm and has raised his level from the opening round series vs. Utah. Friday, he stopped 31 of the 33 shots he faced.
“I thought we got to our game more tonight,” Tortorella said. “Still some things to work on but I liked our start.”
Will they build on Friday’s performance? What does Anaheim do to try and bounce back and even the series on Sunday? If Stone can’t go, does Reilly Smith get back in the lineup? Tortorella had no update on Stone’s condition or his availability for Game 4.
So many questions that we won’t have answers to for another 48 hours. But the one question that was answered was the Golden Knights found a way to respond and regain the upper hand in a series that could’ve slipped from their collective grasp.
“We’re going to try and be better as a team,” Tortorella said of his approach for Sunday. “We know it’s Game 4. It’s going to be more desperate hockey.”