- Anaheim won 5-2 in Game 6 to take the Western First Round series 4-2
- Carlsson, Terry, and Kreider each posted a goal and two assists at Honda Center
- Read below for full details and video on the Ducks’ first series win since 2017
The Anaheim Ducks hadn’t won a playoff series since 2017. That changed Thursday night.
Anaheim closed out the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 in Game 6 at Honda Center, taking the Western Conference First Round series 4-2 and ending a nine-year drought that included seven straight seasons missing the playoffs.
Leo Carlsson, Troy Terry, and Chris Kreider each had a goal and two assists. Cutter Gauthier added a goal and an assist. Lukas Dostal stopped 25 of 27 shots.
The Ducks burst out of the gate with three goals in the first period. By the time Connor Murphy and Vasily Podkolzin replied for Edmonton, Anaheim had enough cushion to ride it out.
The video below shows how Anaheim built its three-goal lead in the opening 20:
The bigger story might be the power play. Anaheim went 8-for-16 with the man-advantage in the series after finishing 23rd at 18.6 percent in the regular season. Against Edmonton, they ran at 50 percent.
“Our power play, again, scored a very timely goal for us,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “Our special teams were special in this series and that made a big impact.”
Anaheim assistant coach Jay Woodcroft helped run that power play. He coached the Oilers from February 2022 until they fired him in November 2023 with the team off to a 3-9-1 start.
“Jay’s got an awareness to a lot of their tendencies, a lot of their predictable movements,” Quenneville said of the Oilers. “He was very helpful, and our power play being that strong with two different units was very well done.”
Edmonton owned the league’s top power play during the regular season at 30.6 percent. Their 20th-ranked penalty kill couldn’t keep up. Connor McDavid finished with six points in the series and was held off the scoresheet three times.
“We struggled on the PK all year,” McDavid said. “We’ve been searching for consistency there.”
The Ducks will face either the Vegas Golden Knights or Utah Mammoth in the second round. Vegas leads that series 3-2 with Game 6 in Salt Lake City on Friday.
For the two-time defending Western Conference champions, it’s a stunning first-round exit.
