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What Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said about Game 1 loss vs. Golden Knights
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- What Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said about Game 1 loss vs. Golden Knights
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For the second straight time, the Anaheim Ducks will be playing from behind after losing 3-1 to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 1 of their Western Conference second-round series at T-Mobile Arena on Monday night.
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It was a tight contest from start to finish , with the Knights holding a 1-0 lead for most of the second and third periods before Mikael Granlund knotted the score at the 13:57 mark of the final frame.
But Ivan Barbashev played hero for Vegas , taking a nifty pass from Pavel Dorofeyev and beating Lukas Dostal with under five minutes remaining in regulation. That's all they would need, although Mitch Marner scored into an empty net with six seconds left.
"I don't mind the way we played," Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville told reporters, per NHL.com's Paul Delos Santos. "We had a lot of pace. Both teams worked hard. It's a heck of a hockey game. … I don't think we had the quantity or the quality we had in the last series, but we did have enough to score more than one."
Quenneville was furious after the Golden Knights' second goal, believing that the play should have been whistled for icing. But it was waved off, and that ended up being the difference in the tightly-contested Pacific Division battle.
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It was a disappointing result for the Ducks, who are fresh off winning their first Stanley Cup Playoff series since 2016-17. But it's not an unfamiliar spot; Anaheim lost Game 1 to Edmonton in the first round, before going on to win the matchup in six games.
They'll be hoping for similar fortune this time around, especially as they were the better team, outshooting Vegas 34-22 in the tilt.
It was a game that could have gone either way, especially as top defenseman Jackson LaCombe passed up an empty net after receiving a great pass from Leo Carlsson .
"He slid it over, and as soon as I fully turned my head around he wasn't there," LaCombe said. "I already made the decision to pass, and so it was just a stupid mistake."
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They're down 1-0, but the Ducks still have a chance to wrestle back home-ice advantage if they can triumph in Game 2 on Wednesday night. Puck will drop from T-Mobile Arena just past 9:30 p.m. ET.
Related: Golden Knights' Jack Eichel, Mark Stone scout Ducks ahead of Round 2
