LA Kings coach Jim Hiller, talking about what his team would do after a dispirited effort against the Pittsburgh Penguins Monday, said something to the effect that they would retreat and get ready to face the defending Stanley Cup champions. That’s Florida, and they arrive in LA on Thursday.
Makes you wonder—do the Champs have to prove themselves anew each game? For games played against teams that they have to face only a couple of times a year, the answer would seem to be “Yes.” The Stanley Cup win against Edmonton back in June is the hallmark taken into account by every new opponent.
On Tuesday night, the Anaheim Ducks seemed unimpressed by talk like this, as they jumped out to a quick lead against Florida off a pass that was slammed across the Florida zone and then slammed past Sergei Bobrovsky by Frank Vatrano. This was on the PP with just under five minutes gone. Florida tied the game at about the nine-minute mark, and the Ducks would have been happy, probably, to exit period one at ones.
The Panthers, not so much. They took advantage of lax control of the puck to score two more goals, one with two minutes to go, one with a minute left. But then the Ducks scored again with 48 seconds left on a shot that Mason McTavish launched up and over the goalie’s head. He would say in his intermission interview that he didn’t expect the opening to be there based on history. He just looked up and saw what was there, then took advantage.
Period two saw no further scoring, despite the fact that Anaheim was undisciplined enough to take three penalties. These were all of Florida’s man advantage situations in the game. But saying it like that is to discount how strong a period Anaheim had in the second, as their coach, Greg Cronin, would parse out after the game.
“The first period we had some jump, but then they got two quick goals. I thought [McTavish]’s goal got us back into it. The second period was great. We had the puck most of the period. We go into the third period, and I felt really confident.” But then the Panthers took advantage of “three guys just standing around” to score an early goal and extend their lead to 4-2, “a real punch in the mouth,” according to Cronin.
That happened shortly into the third. Very shortly, in fact, as in, after 19 seconds had elapsed. It was a play that came from behind the Ducks’ net, with Florida carrying the puck around the net and feeding Sam Bennett in the slot. Goal five, to follow, was a shot flung from distance, just inside the blue line. Ducks’ goalie Dostal didn’t move, indicating that he never saw it.
So the Ducks were roundly beaten by a better team. What made Florida better?
Possibly superior goaltending. Most of the shots on the night were chances taken on an angle in on net. Many were swallowed up in goalies’ guts. Neither team had stuff/wraparounds; neither had breakaways, at least not clear-cut ones. The chances were, rather, mid-slot shots that Florida’s goaltender did better at repelling.
There were some missed chances by the Ducks, however, such as when Nikita Nesterenko had a puck in the slot and missed the net, or when Ryan Strome passed up a shot on a two-on-one to pass the puck backwards across the slot to a player with a considerably worse angle and distance. Not to pick on Nesterenko, but he also had a feed for a breakaway and lost the puck near the net.
In the end, the Ducks didn’t play up to Florida’s level. Cronin described it by saying, “It was one of those games where we were in and out of it in terms of focus.” He cited a sloppy play on Florida’s third goal, where instead of rimming the puck out of the zone, it was thrown back into the area where Florida’s player was sitting waiting for it. There was rescue in the form of a good second period, but without scoring in the second, things never broke in the Ducks’ direction.
That second period was their moment, and they let it slip by. According to Trevor Zegras: “I thought we had a lot of zone time. . . . It’s tough when you don’t capitalize, because it would have given us an extra boost going into the third.”
Cronin proposed a perhaps-obvious solution: “We’ve got to find a way to keep battling. You’ve got to keep playing, [but] they got the two quick goals [in five minutes to start P3], and that really took the steam out of us.”
The Ducks now await another strong, mature, and disciplined opponent in the Pittsburgh Penguins. They visit Anaheim on Thursday evening. Meanwhile, the Panthers zoom up I-5 to take on the Kings in what should be a meaningful test for both sides Wednesday night.
Notes
It was Radko Gudas bobblehead night, so there are 10,000 little Gudi now on mantles and in cars around SoCal. Don’t be scared. I hear they don’t fight non-NHL players.
Zegras was in his first game back from an injury that kept him sidelined for almost two months. He was noticeable at times, but nothing spectacular. He got third star anyway. Afterwards, he said it took until the third shift to feel in synch.
