LAS VEGAS – Whichever way overtime went in Game 5 on Tuesday at T-Mobile Arena, one team was going to feel like one slipped away with a game and series on a razor’s edge.
Both the Anaheim Ducks and Vegas Golden Knights matched each other with power play goals in the first period. They matched each other with battling third period goals. The shot clock was nearly even with Anaheim taking the favor, 36-32.
Ultimately, it was Vegas that got the series-swinging overtime goal–pouncing on the Ducks’ inability to clear and Jack Eichel feeding Pavel Dorofeyev for the winner, 3-2, and the series lead, 3-2.
However, for Anaheim, the overwhelming emotion in the locker room postgame was not a tense frustration. No, the Ducks wore a determined confidence, as they look to channel their biggest adversity yet with their season on the line back at Honda Center in Game 6 on Thursday.
“It's right there on the tip of your tongue and you don't get it, so it's a bit frustrating,” Cutter Gauthier said, “but definitely motivated to get back out there and compete against those guys again.”
“I'm pretty excited to see what we all got,” Mason McTavish said. “I think a lot of guys are just excited to play already. We want to get back out there already, and we're kind of excited to see what everybody's gonna bring.”
Anaheim made its bones all regular season in comeback situations, leading the league in overall comeback wins and third period wins. The Ducks set an NHL record for most game-tying or go-ahead goals in the final two minutes of regulation.
Anaheim has three comeback wins in their six postseason victories so far and were one shot away from four and seven, respectively. The Ducks have eliminated two 1-0 series deficits and leveled the series in a tremendous Game 4.
But Game 6 will be their biggest test of adversity yet, and for the 14 Ducks’ playoff rookies, Thursday will be their first brush with elimination.
It’s one thing to come back in October, but it’s another to rally in May. Minutes after what could be its most crushing loss of the season, Anaheim was already embracing the challenge.
“Our first game with our backs against the wall, and I'm excited for us to kind of show everybody what we got,” McTavish said. “I expect a lot of confidence, and a great game on Thursday.”
“It might be a first (elimination game) for a lot of us,” Gauthier said, “but we're not gonna take it for granted, and we're not just gonna be happy that we're here. We wanna win games, and we wanna go as far as we possibly can. I'm happy how the group has handled themselves up to this date, but we have a big game in a couple days.”
Make no mistake, though, Game 5 was still a gut punch that this young Anaheim team can learn from, and Quenneville can deliver that lesson in an odd twist of fate for Ducks fans.
“It's definitely a big letdown and tomorrow you wake up and it's a new day,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “But certainly, there'll be some games in the playoffs that at the end of the game, your stomach feels like it's rotten.”
“At the same time, it can happen just the opposite, and I've been in a situation where this Game 5 reminded me of a situation where Game 5 and not that long ago (with the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2015 Western Conference Final), and it was against Anaheim, and same situation. So there's hope.”
In 2015, Matt Beleskey won a dramatic Game 5 overtime in Anaheim, only for the Blackhawks to decisive win Game 6 back in Chicago. Ducks fans are well aware of what became another Game 7 home loss, as Quenneville denied Anaheim’s best shot at a Stanley Cup in that era.
It’s a cruel decade-old turn of the knife that Quenneville can impart the lesson of that series on these Ducks now, but there was plenty to build on coming out of this Game 5, even if it comes with an even-handed bitter pill.
Anaheim grabbed the lead for the second straight game on Beckett Sennecke’s fourth straight playoff game with a goal–the Ducks’ second straight game with a power play goal. Sennecke tied the Ducks rookie record for playoff goals with five, set by Bobby Ryan in 2009.
However, that was the Ducks’ only strike on a five-minute major penalty and game misconduct levied against Brayden McNabb for drilling Ryan Poehling on a late hit. Poehling was propped up by teammates to leave the ice and by training staff to head down the tunnel.
Poehling did not return to the game with an upper-body, and there was no further update postgame. Always dangerous to speculate, but Poehling does have two concussions in his career. It’s part of why he wears a tinted visor to cut down on the glare from the arena lights.
“They lost the guy, we lost the guy,” Quenneville said. “We're down a centerman. Very important guy for us. I think they saw the hit, the call, the right call was made. That's how I saw it.”
Not capitalizing on that opportunity stung all the more, as Vegas went to the power play on a light call following the Ducks advantage and scored. Dorofeyev struck there on a solo effort, stripping Chris Kreider of the puck on a potential exit, and Dorofeyev’s pierced a corner over Lukas Dostal.
Both teams buttoned down in the second period, but Vegas pushed in front early in the third, once more on a Ducks mistake.
Ian Moore iced the puck, and on the ensuing faceoff, Moore couldn’t tie up Tomas Hertl, who battled a rebound through Dostal. Hertl had not scored in 29 games and now has tallies in back-to-back games.
Dostal was phenomenal all night in a 29-save effort, but it was the one rebound that struck back.
However, again the positive swing the other direction, as McTavish and Gauthier drove an offensive push for the Ducks, despite losing their centerman in Poehling. McTavish and Gauthier each finished with two assists.
After weathering the Golden Knight’s storm, McTavish faked a slap shot and found Gauthier through a seam, but Gauthier passed up the one-timer for a one-touch pass to Olen Zellweger at the far point. Zellweger stepped into the open space and wired the game-tying wrister with just over three minutes to play.
After 13 straight healthy scratches into the playoffs, Zellweger has rejoined the line-up with gusto, earning an assist on the game-winning goal in Game 4 and nailing the game-tying marker in Game 5.
“Ton of confidence. I know this group is gonna bounce back,” Zellweger said. “I think we have all playoffs long, so, yeah. We're gonna take a few lessons from this one, obviously, and ready to go.”
Once more with the positive swings the negative in the overtime.
Ahead of Dorofeyev’s game-winning goal, his second of the game, John Carlson tried to hit Leo Carlsson with an exit pass, but the puck went off Carlsson’s stick to the former Duck Ben Hutton at the Vegas point. Kreider battled to the corner to chip the puck to Troy Terry, but this time Terry couldn’t get the puck to Carlsson, as Eichel hounded the play on the wall.
Eichel then threw the puck in front, where it deflected off Kreider’s skate and off Dostal’s pad and Dorofeyev whacked the puck straight to the top corner for the winner.
Anaheim got its power play marker. It showed its trademark grit to battle back to tie the game. As Quenneville said after Game 4 and repeated tonight, it was a man’s game out there, but still, it’s the little mistakes that the veteran Knights jumped on to put the Ducks in series check.
“Good enough to win, but sometimes it's just not the case in the playoffs,” McTavish said.
As Quenneville will tell you about those 2015 Blackhawks, there is still a window of opportunity to not only tie the series but potentially win it, and these Ducks still believe they can.
“It's a fun opportunity, you know?” Quenneville said. “We got pressure. We got to come out, play hard and simple at home, get excited about the home crowd, and it’s one game to get back and to play one more.”
“So that's our mindset, and I think a lot of younger guys that they've been fine in the whole playoffs, and nothing seems to change their demeanor, or their approach, and we'll come back in here tomorrow, or back in home, and focus on the next game, and knowing that, hey, we're right in the thick of things here.”