{"id":568908,"date":"2026-05-07T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/568908\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T07:00:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:00:25","slug":"nhl-playoffs-lukas-dostal-and-ducks-defeat-vegas-in-game-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/568908\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL playoffs: Lukas Dostal and Ducks defeat Vegas in Game 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LAS VEGAS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Before the Ducks<\/a> had even checked out of their hotel Wednesday for the short bus ride to T-Mobile Arena for Game 2 of their Stanley Cup playoff series, the Las Vegas sports books had made the hometown Golden Knights heavy favorites.<\/p>\n

That proved to be a poor bet a couple of hours later when the Ducks rolled to a 3-1 victory<\/a>, evening the best-of-seven playoff series at 1-1. The second-round series resumes Friday at Honda Center.<\/p>\n

The Ducks\u2019 goals came from Beckett Sennecke<\/a> in the second period and Leo Carlsson<\/a> and Jansen Harkins<\/a> in the third. Harkins\u2019 goal, into an empty net, was the exclamation point on the win. Jack Eichel<\/a> scored Vegas\u2019 only goal on a power play in the final seconds, denying goaltender Lukas Dostal<\/a> and the Ducks their first shutout of the season.<\/p>\n

\"Ducks <\/p>\n

Ducks forward Beckett Sennecke celebrates after scoring in the second period against the Golden Knights in Game 2 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

(Ethan Miller \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the first time the Ducks defied the odds this postseason. After losing the opener of their first-round series to favored Edmonton, the Ducks won four of the next five<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This one shouldn\u2019t have been that close. The younger, faster Ducks dominated the plodding Golden Knights for most of the game, but Vegas stifled the Ducks\u2019 power play, which kept it in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way to beat them is just outpacing them,\u201d Ducks center Ryan Poehling<\/a> said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not just with speed. It\u2019s how we play. Guys are supporting one another, and you saw that tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight was kind of a game plan of what we want to do to win, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Golden Knights, who killed four penalties in Game 1, saw three players go to the box in the first 5\u00bd minutes, giving the Ducks a man advantage for eight consecutive minutes. For one minute and 41 seconds, Vegas was down two players.<\/p>\n

Yet the Ducks couldn\u2019t score.<\/p>\n

\"Ducks <\/p>\n

Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal protects the net in front of Vegas forward Tomas Hertl during the second period.<\/p>\n

(John Locher \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The Ducks were shut out on another power play in the second period, extending to 19 the number of consecutive penalties the Golden Knights have killed in the playoffs. They\u2019ve allowed just one power-play goal in 25 tries in the postseason.<\/p>\n

Which isn\u2019t to say the Ducks weren\u2019t dangerous through the first period and a half, they were. But goaltender Carter Hart<\/a> was stellar, turning away 17 shots before Sennecke got one past at 11:23 of the second. Jeffrey Viel<\/a> set up the goal, with his pass from behind the goal line finding Sennecke for a quick wrist shot from the top of the crease.<\/p>\n

Carlsson, left all alone on the right side, doubled the advantage with his fourth goal of the playoffs at 13:24 of the third period, redirecting in a backhand pass from Troy Terry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Defensive games haven\u2019t been the Ducks\u2019 strength this season \u2014 they gave up more than 3.5 goals a game during the regular season, more than any other playoff team \u2014 but they have smothered the Golden Knights. They gave up just 23 shots in Game 2.<\/p>\n

Vegas was also plagued by poor passing and puck handling while the Ducks defenders did a good job of keeping the crease clear.<\/p>\n

\"Ducks <\/p>\n

Ducks forward Leo Carlsson scores past Vegas goaltender Carter Hart during the first period Wednesday.<\/p>\n

(John Locher \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re picking a good time here to play our best hockey,\u201d defenseman Jacob Trouba<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Now the Ducks go home having split of the first two games, but feeling like they\u2019re leading the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t like Game 1 ended, but we liked our game,\u201d Poehling said about a game that turned on a missed icing call<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s hockey sometimes. You can play the right way, do all the right things, we end up losing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kept the momentum going into Game 2 and now we\u2019re headed home, which is fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the once-favored Golden Knights, they need to hold serve in Anaheim to keep home-ice advantage when the series returns to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a split here,\u201d coach John Tortorella said. \u201cWe need to get a game there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Before the Ducks had even checked out of their hotel Wednesday for the short bus ride to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[1199,1739,63820,654,436,5,25748,3040,955,4,60,63819,506,1936,5824,14,104,718,9625,74,2120],"class_list":["post-568908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl-playoffs","category-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-beckett-sennecke","tag-ducks","tag-final-second","tag-game","tag-goal","tag-hockey","tag-jansen-harkins","tag-leo-carlsson","tag-minute","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-playoffs","tag-plodding-golden-knights","tag-power-play","tag-season","tag-second-period","tag-stanley-cup","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl","tag-third","tag-vegas","tag-win"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116532008467516198","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}