ANAHEIM –– For the Ducks, every inch they advance takes most of the roster into uncharted territory.
The vast majority of their players have never competed in the Stanley Cup Playoffs before, and under the second most seasoned and second most successful coach in playoff history, Joel Quenneville, they are getting a crash course in high-stakes hockey.
After a relatively smooth ride from Game 2 of their first-round series against Edmonton onward, they’ve faced a more physical, more intense and more ruthless opponent in the Vegas Golden Knights, whom they edged 4-3 in Sunday’s vital Game 4 ahead of a pivotal Game 5 on Tuesday in Sin City.
“Every next game is the biggest game, so we’re gonna go to Vegas and hopefully we’re gonna get it done,” said rookie Beckett Sennecke, one of three Ducks to bust out with a multipoint showing in Game 4, helping to tie the best-of-seven series.
Defenseman Olen Zellweger, who picked up an assist on Sunday, was the latest Duck to make his postseason debut. He said that while it was important to have a handful of teammates who’d played deep into the spring, the group was coalescing regardless of its experiential range.
“Everyone is confident in each other,” Zellweger said.
Troy Terry captured a collegiate national title and Chris Kreider won two, while Jackson LaCombe and Cutter Gauthier reached the Frozen Four final. Gauthier added World Junior Championship gold, while LaCombe ascended the medal stand at that tournament, at the senior World Championships and at the Olympics in February.
Winning the sport’s most coveted prize, as John Carlson did in 2018 and Alex Killorn accomplished in both 2020 and 2021, is an entirely different endeavor.
“Playing for the Stanley Cup, everything is elevated. All the high-pressure moments I’ve played in before have been one-game eliminations, not a best-of-seven series. So it’s definitely a lot different than what I’ve experienced,” Gauthier said. “We have a great group of guys in the locker room to lead us through it, guys like Killorn and a handful of other guys like (Carlson, Kreider and Jacob Trouba) that we lean on to get some good advice.”
The Ducks have reached this point through balanced scoring, particularly in their current series. In it, 14 different Ducks have recorded at least one point, including 10 different forwards, with no one player surpassing Sennecke’s four-point output. In all, 19 different Ducks have registered a point in the playoffs.
Conversely, Vegas’ bottom-six forwards have struggled to produce at all.
Tomáš Hertl’s late, face-saving 6-on-5 goal in Game 4 was his first in 30 appearances dating back to the regular season. Colton Sissons had a secondary power-play assist in Game 3. That’s the sum of the bottom-six production for Vegas, whose half-dozen current bottom-six attackers have combined for zero five-on-five points and a -10 rating.
Marquee offseason acquisition Mitch Marner outpaces everyone not only on the team but for the round, with nine points to also hold the NHL lead across the playoffs to date with 16 total points. Jack Eichel sits behind him with four assists in the series that don’t quite tell the story of his commanding presence in several key situations.
While the Oilers loaded up their top line with their top players early in Round 1, moving Leon Draisaitl onto Connor McDavid’s flank, Vegas has largely separated their heaviest artillery, making the matchup game more challenging, even more so on the road.
“We have four lines and we want to make sure that we can trust everybody defensively. We played hard, and everybody got exposure to everybody (in Game 4),” Quenneville said. “Without the last change, we’ve just got to play accordingly. We want to make sure that (we take short shifts), be good about our changes and (maintain) the intensity within our shifts.”
Defenseman Drew Helleson missed Game 4 and was questionable to return for Game 5. Captain Radko Gudas took warmups as a game-time decision but did not skate on Sunday, though he could draw in on Tuesday.