LOS ANGELES – Anaheim got back into its series with L.A. by winning Game 3 thanks in large part to a second-period play.
Heading into Game 3, the antics of Corey Perry and the physical play of his Ducks teammates on Drew Doughty had been hot topics in both dressing rooms. “If anything, it makes you hungrier,” said Doughty. “It makes you want to work harder to avoid those hits and make a difference. When they’re targeting you and you’re still successful, that’s the most frustrating thing for them.”
On this play, it was Perry getting a bump on Doughty down low and drawing a retaliatory hooking penalty that created nearly a minute of 4-on-3 action.
The Ducks were unable to cash in on their lengthy but somewhat tentative power play, but ultimately struck with three precious ticks of 5-on-4 time remaining. “The difference in the game was a turnover when it’s 1-1, when you have a penalty kill,” Kings Coach Darryl Sutter said. “If you give guys easy, fast, opportunities toward our goal, they’re gonna beat us.”
It was the series of events leading to the goal that showed so much about the game within the game in this airtight matchup.
With the momentum of Perry’s agitation and the lengthy advantage waning, the ageless Selanne and the pace-setting Nick Bonino hopped over the boards. “Absolutely I wanted to get out there,” Selanne said. “It was kind of at the end of the shift, too. Good bounce for us, we got the 2-on-1,” Selanne said. “Bonino made an unbelievable pass. It was quite easy to put that in, actually. I’d like to see more of those.”
The odd-man rush was made possible by a collision between two Kings players, top centre Anze Kopitar and defenceman Slava Voynov. Bonino out-battled Voynov for the loose puck and Alec Martinez was left alone to defend Selanne and Bonino coming with speed, with no chance to catch Selanne at the right post, who simply skated to the net front and stopped for a tap-in, the sort of goal the Ducks said they were looking for against the often impregnable Quick.
There has also been a symmetry to some of the puck luck in the series, with a pileup between two Ducks behind their own net leading to a Martinez goal in Game 2 and both teams scoring similar power-play goals to open their respective scoring in Game 3. Even with Anaheim’s planned adjustments—lineup changes, a stronger net-front presence and tighter defensive gaps—and unplanned adjustments—Hiller’s solid relief of the injured Andersen—one should not expect any big breakthroughs in the hermetically sealed series.
“I don’t think you’re gonna see that,” Selanne said. “Obviously, these are two very similar teams, system-wise, too. They’re going to be tight games that can go either way,” Selanne said. “We try to do little things better than them and hopefully that’s going to be enough. We have a lot of respect for those guys, they’re a great and you just have to play, every night, your best game.”