Orange Crush! Golden Knights Dominate Game 6, Leave Orange County with Series Victory

The Golden Knights’ other special teams unit got in on the action too with 2:41 left in the first. With Anaheim forward Alex Killorn off for hooking, the Golden Knights’ power play went to work and scored just five seconds into the man-advantage. In what was a seeing-eye shot from the center point, Shea Theodore (4) wristed a puck through heavy traffic that whizzed past the right ear of Dostal and in to put the Golden Knights up by a trio of goals.

The Golden Knights’ first period was as impressive as the Bellagio Conservatory. By the time the period was over, the Golden Knights had scored even-strength, short-handed, and on the power play. The three goals came on just nine shots, while holding Anaheim to just four. The Golden Knights also won 61.1 percent of the faceoffs in the first frame.

Anaheim was finally able to solve Carter Hart in the second, but it would take a power play to do so. After Golden Knights forward Nic Dowd shot the puck out of play and was whistled for delay of game, Anaheim went to work on its third power play opportunity of the game. Mikael Granlund (5) one-timed a stellar cross-ice centering pass from Troy Terry that beat Hart low to his glove side at 12:46 of the second to pull Anaheim to within two, 3-1. The shorthanded goals allowed notwithstanding, the Anaheim power play greatly improved as the series went on. With the power play tally, the Ducks improved to 4-for-9 on the power play over the last three games after going 0-for-11 in the first three. This would be the only goal scored in the second and the score remained 3-1 heading into the second intermission.

Any hopes of a comeback for Anaheim were quickly squashed by the Golden Knights early in the third. While Anaheim outshot Vegas 15-3 in the frame, it was the Golden Knights that scored twice. Less than three minutes into the third, Ivan Barbashev picked off a failed clearing attempt by Anaheim defenseman John Carlson, then made a slick backhand pass to Pavel Dorofeyev (8) in the right circle who wired a wrist shot past the blocker of Dostal at 2:52 of the third. Just over ten minutes later, Dorofeyev added another goal on a bad angle shot from the bottom of the right circle to give the Golden Knights a commanding 5-1 lead. The goal pushed Dorofeyev past teammate Brett Howden for the most post-season goals in the NHL with nine.

Late in the third, Anaheim pulled Dostal and threw a high volume of shots at Hart, but none would find the back of the net and the Golden Knights skated away with the series victory. The Golden Knights will now move on to the Western Conference Final where they will meet the NHL’s best regular-season team, the Colorado Avalanche. Game 1 will take place on Wednesday at 5pm PT in Denver.

Notes

• Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb served a one-game suspension for interference against Anaheim center Ryan Poehling in Game 5. McNabb has played 757 games for the Golden Knights in the regular season and post-season combined, which is the most in franchise history.
• Anaheim had been 7-0 all-time at home in Game 6.
• Anaheim had not lost consecutive games this postseason and finished the post-season 4-2 at home, with the only two losses coming to Vegas.

Statistics

• Shots on goal favored Anaheim, 32-21.
• Amazingly, the faceoff winning percentages were the exact same as Game 5, 53.1% to 46.9% in favor of Vegas.
• Vegas was 1-2 on the power play, while Anaheim was 1-5.
• Anaheim had the edge in hits, 30-24.
• Vegas blocked 13 shots, while Anaheim blocked 11.
• Anaheim had three more giveaways than Vegas, 20-17.
• Anaheim had the slight advantage in takeaways, 5-4.