ANAHEIM — Sometimes a power-play unit can do everything right and still fail to score. Sometimes it can pass the puck effectively, move bodies smartly and set up odd-man advantages near the net and still misfire. Sometimes it’s not what the power players aren’t doing, but what the penalty killers are doing.
Sometimes the puck just won’t go in the net.
It could lead a team to distraction.
If the Ducks were frustrated by going 0 for 9 over the first two games of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Vegas Golden Knights, it was not apparent going into Game 3 on Friday night at Honda Center. They seemed eager willing to work to end their drought.
No question, the Ducks raised expectations by going 8 for 16 with the man advantage during their six-game victory over the Edmonton Oilers in the first round. No doubt, there were plenty of reasons to believe they wouldn’t continue to click at a 50% success rate against the Golden Knights.
After all, Vegas’ penalty killers gave up one power-play goal in 16 shorthanded situations during their six-game victory over the Utah Mammoth in the opening round. So, it stood to reason that the Ducks wouldn’t dent the Golden Knights the way they did against the Oilers.
So far, the Golden Knights have shown they’re capable of pressuring the Ducks’ power players much closer than the Oilers did. Edmonton preferred to sit back and defend closer to their own net, leaving the Ducks free to pass the puck on the perimeter and exploit gaps in the coverage.
The Golden Knights have been eager to swarm the Ducks upon their entry into the attacking zone. They turned up the pressure higher near the blue line and, especially, along the wings. The Ducks couldn’t find their way through the pressure during a loss in Game 1 and a victory in Game 2.
“Definitely a different kind of look from our opponents,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said before Game 3. “Entries, faceoffs, possession time, looks – not the quality that we had in the last series. Certainly, we had some looks and our power play is not losing momentum in the game.”
The Ducks could have had an easier time against the Golden Knights if they had cashed in at least one man-advantage chance in the first period Wednesday in Game 2. After all, they spent more than 6½ minutes on the power play, including 1:41 while skating 5 on 3, and didn’t score.
“Whether it’s the finish or the fine tuning, certainly there’s a higher difficulty of the pressure coming at us,” Quenneville said.
Naturally, the Ducks aren’t resigned to a powerless power play in the second round. They planned to make adjustments for Game 3 and beyond. More traffic in front of Vegas goaltender Carter Hart would be beneficial. So would more shots from here, there and everywhere. More movement, too.
“I think it’s execution,” said Ducks defenseman John Carlson, who quarterbacks their top power-play unit. “You don’t realize how much a little pass goes and a (teammate) has to battle it instead of, you know, getting possession right away. Those things matter, too, aside from the fact that we’ve got a harder job to get (the puck) where it needs to be because of how good they are on the PK. We definitely think highly of ourselves to be more than capable of executing.”
AROUND THE RINK
Defenseman Radko Gudas, the Ducks’ team captain, continued to skate with his teammates, and Quenneville continued to say he expected him to play at some point in the second-round series against the Golden Knights. Gudas has been out since Game 1 of the first-round series because of a lower-body injury. … Quenneville indicated he would scratch Mason McTavish and Ian Moore for the second consecutive game, keeping Ross Johnston and Jansen Harkins in the lineup.