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Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — On paper, the Vegas Golden Knights were the favorite over division foe Anaheim in the first game of the Best-of-7 Western Conference semis Monday night.
But it was Ducks that came out and applied the pressure first, with their skaters zooming in on VGK goalie Carter Hart and outshooting, the Knights, 8-1, at one point in the middle of the first period.
The Golden Knights eventually found their legs and began catching up with Anaheim, which probably regretted not cashing in on their good scoring chances in the first half of the opening period.
Anaheim did not score on a power play in the first minute of the second period and a few minutes later VGK’s Mitch Marner skated in on goalie Lukas Dostal and fed red-hot Brett Howden for the game’s first goal.
LVSportsBiz.com asked Marner after the game about his partnership on that VGK second line with Howden: “Our chemistry is really growing.”
The Ducks were outshooting Vegas by a 2-to-1 edge, but it were the Knights leading 1-0, thanks to Hart’s stellar play.
“He was our best player tonight,” Vegas coach John Tortorella said of Hart.
William Karlsson was back in action for Vegas.
Columbus had Karlsson back in 2017 when the Knights plucked Karlsson off the Blue Jackets roster during the expansion draft in June 2017. Current VGK coach Jon Tortorella was the Columbus coach at the time. He had no idea that Karlsson would go on to score 43 goals in VGK Year 1.
In the final period, the Knights were still clinging to their 1-0 lead.
The Knights played with fire all game and finally Anaheim burned them and scored on Hart, who was playing a superb game. Mikael Granlund tied the game.
But Ivan Barbashev, who is having a great postseason, countered with the go-ahead goal with about five minutes left when an icing was not called and Vegas led, 2-1 — a lead that expanded to 3-1 thanks to a Marner pop fly empty-netter to polish off the Ducks in Game 1.
Quenneville was irate during the game that the icing wasn’t called.
In his postgame presser, Quenneville thought his team generated enough scoring chances to score more than just one goal. “We did have enough (chances) to score more than one.”
In his postgame comments, Tortorella acknowledged the Golden Knights can play a lot better but he’s not going to apologize for coming away with a win in the series’ opening game.
“It’s a ‘find-a-way-to-win’ league,” VGK coach John Tortorella said in response to an LVSportBiz.com question on Anaheim starting the game with more juice and scoring chances.
“We’re fortunate we found a way to win,” Tortorella said.
Game 2 is Wednesday here in Las Vegas. See you then.
PSA