Ducks rebound with four-goal burst
ANAHEIM, CALIF.— Nick Ritchie scored the tiebreaking goal late in the second period, and the Anaheim Ducks roared back from an early two-goal deficit to even the Western Conference final with a 5-3 victory over the Nashville Predators in Game 2 on Sunday night.
Jakob Silfverberg, Sami Vatanen and Ondrej Kase also scored, while the Ducks solved imposing goalie Pekka Rinne with a thrilling surge of four goals in less than 19 minutes. The Predators hadn’t allowed four goals in any game during their Stanley Cup playoff run before Anaheim got rolling in front of a sellout crowd.
John Gibson stopped 30 shots, and Antoine Vermette had an empty-net goal for the Ducks. Ryan Johansen, James Neal and Filip Forsberg scored for the Predators. Game 3 goes Tuesday night in Nashville.
Rinne made 22 saves for the Predators, who faced relatively little adversity while steamrolling Chicago and St. Louis in the first two rounds on the way to the first conference final in franchise history.
Two days after Nashville’s 3-2 overtime victory at Honda Center in the series opener, Johansen and Neal scored in the opening 8:32 of Game 2.
The Ducks finally awakened at the prospect of their second straight 0-2 series deficit and replied with highoctane hockey — and a few fortunate bounces — that was too much even for Rinne, who hadn’t given up four goals in a game since March 13.
Ritchie, the power forward playing deep in the playoffs for the first time, scored the winning goal in Game 7 against Edmonton. Four days later, he found the net with a very high shot that appeared to glance off Rinne’s mask on the way in.
Anaheim hung on through a frenetic third period, surviving a few mad scrambles before captain Ryan Getzlaf notched his third assist of the night on Vermette’s empty-netter. The Ducks also got several good saves from Gibson, who has raised his game from the first two rounds. Although Honda Center was much fuller and louder than it was for the traffic-affected series opener, the Ducks’ knack for slow starts at home remained constant.
After Johansen scored on a breakaway just 4:18 in, Neal doubled the lead on a power play with a gimme, escorting the puck unimpeded into the net when Gibson completely lost sight of the play.
The now-familiar ominous hush fell over Honda Center, but the Ducks got going in an unlikely scenario. Anaheim’s power play was scoreless in 21 straight attempts dating to Game 2 of the second round against Edmonton, but Vatanen beat Rinne cleanly with a slapshot for his first goal of the post-season.