Three Keys to Keep the Anaheim Ducks Rolling in Vegas

After an enthralling 5-2 victory last night against the Avalanche, the Anaheim Ducks are moving out to Sin City to face the Golden Knights. They have broken the three-game losing skid, but how can they keep this new win streak going? As always, there are three main factors to getting this important win.

The Anaheim Ducks and the Vegas Golden Knights don’t really have much of a rivalry brewing considering that the Ducks have gone 1-7-0 against Vegas since their inaugural season, but they will have to put the past where it belongs and come away with a big win tonight. To do so, they will have to start by capitalizing on Vegas’ current struggles.

Kicking Them While They’re Down

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Over their past three games, Vegas has only scored five goals and they are just coming off a 6-1 blowout against Colorado. In that game, their defense was really leaving Marc-Andre Fleury up to dry, and Colorado was just destroying Vegas in terms of quality scoring chances. Eventually, Fleury got pulled and couldn’t handle anymore, so the Ducks must continue that pressure. Ducks fans saw a plethora of scoring from different people in their previous game, so if the offense stays potent, Vegas will have a lot to deal with.

The main part of this key is simply scoring enough. They don’t have to blow them out, but the Ducks need to get to a comfortable point and not allow the Knights to get their own scoring chances considering their current struggles on offense. Hopefully, Adam Henrique will be the spark that Anaheim needs to get this game started off right.

Off to a Good Start

With Henrique’s goal coming so early on in last night’s game, that gave the Anaheim Ducks a ton of early momentum that ended up leading them to play so well in the first period, so why not try to repeat that? Despite their last loss, Vegas is a great team, so allowing them to come out hot won’t do. They are super eager, and if the Ducks can turn that eagerness into frustration, the sailing will be relatively smooth.

Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson are the two players that Vegas is relying on to get back on track, so it is crucial to keep them in check in the early goings. The toughest part of scoring an early goal is beating Fleury. He is most likely not at his best from still being tired from that previous blow-out, but that won’t stop him from robbing the Ducks early on. It is just a matter of not getting mad at missed opportunities and piling on shots until the puck goes in, that’s what matters here for Anaheim. But just as important as the offense is continuing their defensive triumphs.

Playing the Smart Game

During the Avalanche game, the Anaheim Ducks had some amazing moments that made the defense look flashy. That being said, there were plenty of incredibly shaky moments where they let Colorado take one-to-many shots on goal. Erik Gudbranson has fit quite nicely into the defense, and now it’s really time to show off that they can play hard enough to beat this Vegas team.

It’s crucial to not allow many early shots towards John Gibson in order to not let him get tired out too quickly. Yes, the defense is guilty of allowing that to happen a lot of the time, but they can work together to fix it. Their last game was a great start, so now it’s time to see how they build on that. Gibson will do his thing when needed, so the defense needs to do their thing more often than not in blocking good shots and creating turn-overs in both the neutral and defensive zones.

To recap, this game will be a tough game in a house of horrors for the Anaheim Ducks, but this would be the best opportunity for them to stem the tide in this historically lopsided match-up. They’ll need to capitalize on all of Vegas’ mistakes, get some early momentum, and keep up that momentum by playing defense as best they can. If all goes well, it will be another very entertaining Ducks game to add to the books.

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