Joel Quenneville made all the right moves in Game 2 win
The Anaheim Ducks may be in the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons, but it’s clear they’re not simply happy to be there. After dispatching the back-to-back Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers in the first round, the Ducks have arguably outplayed the more experienced Vegas Golden Knights over the first two games of their second-round series. Despite outshooting Vegas 34-22 in Game 1, and generating 67.02% of the expected goals according to Natural Stat Trick, Anaheim lost by a score of 3-1.
In Wednesday’s Game 2, the Ducks drew even, once again outshooting and outchancing the Golden Knights en route to a 3-1 victory. Goaltender Lukas Dostal had a bounce-back performance, stopping 21 of 22 shots for the win, and star forward Leo Carlsson’s first goal of the series was the game winner. Anaheim’s ace up their sleeve, however, is their three-time Stanley Cup-winning head coach Joel Quenneville, who made some critical lineup adjustments in Game 2 to help earn the win.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen discussed how Quenneville pulled the right strings to get a win before the series heads to Anaheim for Game 3.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Joel Quenneville really pushed a lot of the right buttons coming off that Game 1 loss. He throws in (Jansen) Harkins and (Ross) Johnston, who were just demons on the forecheck all night. He moves (Jeffrey) Viel around the lineup, and aside from taking one of those bad penalties, he ends up assisting on that Beckett Sennecke goal to open the scoring. Joel Quenneville finding ways to get the most out of his depth, as much as I love the Senneckes and the Carlssons and (Jackson) LaCombe’s been excellent of course, and Dostal’s bounced back well after getting lit up in that one game in Edmonton, Joel Quenneville and the way he’s managed to get the most out of this depth, that’s the headline once again.
Colby Cohen: You scratch an assistant captain as well, a beloved player within the locker room. (Mason) McTavish was kind of in the dog house at times down the stretch. He came out of the lineup once or twice down the stretch with Quenneville, so you know that this is a relationship where I don’t think the coach trusts the player. We had Alec Martinez on Morning Cuppa Hockey this morning, and no one knows these situations better than him with all the playoff success that he’s had. You can look around the NHL playoffs, there’s other scenarios that are similar. You have to be able to trust a guy that you’re throwing over the boards.
With McTavish, he’s high risk and high reward, and coaches don’t love that come playoff time. You have to learn how to limit risk, and the way that Anaheim plays, with a lot of risk, if McTavish is tipping the scale to where Quenneville doesn’t trust him with everything else that he kind of allows, you know that it’s not good as far as the way that they feel about him, meaning they just don’t trust that he knows the next right play.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Thursday’s episode here…