Ducks maturing fast entering Game 3 against Golden Knights in West 2nd Round

ANAHEIM -- The Anaheim Ducks are learning on the fly and experiencing some intense on-the-job training in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

However, they are catching on quickly.

The Ducks will look to take the lead in the Western Conference Second Round when they host the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 3 at Honda Center on Friday (9:30 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN360, SN, TVAS). 

Anaheim tied the best-of-7 series with a 3-1 win in Game 2 at Vegas on Wednesday. 

“Give everybody a lot of credit. I know this team had some growing pains that we had to go through,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said Thursday. “All year long, I always said I just can’t wait to get to the playoffs because I want to see how good these guys can be.”

As it turns out, it’s pretty good. 

Despite the Ducks’ inexperience -- there are 15 players on the playoff roster who had no postseason experience prior to this season, with defenseman Olen Zellweger the only member of that group yet to debut -- Anaheim can take control of the series with the next two games at home. 

The mistakes the Ducks made in upsetting the Edmonton Oilers in six games in the first round have been limited so far against the Golden Knights. 

Anaheim outshot Vegas 34-22 in a 3-1 loss in Game 1 on Monday. 

“That’s what I’ve been most proud of I think, just how mature our team has been in some of our games,” forward Troy Terry said. “The things that maybe plagued us during the regular season, I just think we’re ratcheting down on a lot of things and playing complete games.”

Quenneville has been stressing defense to his young group all season, but at times it was tough to keep the team from playing run-and-gun. 

It was last shot wins for the Ducks at times, and the playoffs started out that way for them against the Oilers with a couple of back-and-forth thrillers. 

Yet, Anaheim seemingly has come to the understanding that defense usually prevails in the playoffs. The Ducks limited the Golden Knights to 22 shots in Game 2, including just three in the first period. 

“I think there is progress,” Quenneville said. “I think the speed in our game has been noticeable. I think we felt after Game 1, bringing in a couple of fresh troops (forwards Ross Johnston and Jansen Harkins) could add to that mix and we’re going to need more guys in the series to have success.”

Even Vegas coach John Tortorella acknowledged how well Anaheim played in the first two games. And he rarely talks about his opponents. 

“They’ve done the job,” he said Thursday. “I’m not going to talk much about the other team, but they’ve done the job.”

The Ducks look like a different team than the one battling to get into the playoffs for the first time since 2018. 

In the opening period of its first playoff game, it appeared as though Anaheim was going to be run out of the postseason in a hurry, trailing 2-0 against Edmonton. The Ducks, however, were able to stem the tide after losing Game 1 and won three straight.

They have an opportunity to do the same against the Golden Knights. 

“I think it’s kind of been just learning on the fly,” Terry said. “I think back to our first period of our first game in the playoffs and to see how far we’ve come of how we played Game 1 in Vegas. Through a mix of leaders, obviously an experienced coaching staff, just all of that, I think you’re just seeing a team learning on the fly to what works, what doesn’t work in (the) playoffs and how we need to play. 

“That’s kind of the exciting thing. We have a lot of room to even keep getting better.”

Things do have a tendency to change quickly in the playoffs, which is another lesson Quenneville hopes to have his team prepared to learn. Just like against Edmonton, Anaheim is facing a playoff-savvy team, and Vegas feels it has yet to find its game in the second round.

“I think in this series in order for us to be successful we feel we’re going to have to get better,” Quenneville said. “They’re a good hockey team, but I just like the response we had from everybody across the board. I thought we came with a lot of energy and I like the progress of our team game late in the year, even though we didn’t show it going into the playoffs, but I thought our playoff hockey has been some of our best hockey all year.”   

It has been an uneven road for the Ducks to get to this point, but they seem to have found a new level of maturity through their limited playoff experience. 

“You saw that even through the year,” Terry said. “We would go through nine-game winning streaks and nine-game losing streaks and just so many different lessons to be learned. I think at times this year we weren’t necessarily absorbing all the lessons, but now that that I think we’ve proven how good our A-game is and you’re seeing in the playoffs the details you need to be consistent each night, whether we have our A-game or not …  

“Even for me, we didn’t know how much it would translate into the playoffs, the maturity of our team.”