ANAHEIM, Calif. – This series seemed destined to reach an overtime at some point, and with another multigoal comeback under their belts, the Anaheim Ducks sent this to overtime and earned the favor of Lady Luck one more time.
Anaheim erased a 2-0 first-period deficit with a pair of second-period power play goals, and Jeffrey Viel battled for the game-tying goal with 6:29 remaining in regulation. In the Ducks’ first playoff overtime game in nine years, Ryan Poehling scored the delayed-reaction, confirmed-on-review winner to take Game 4 over the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3, on Sunday at Honda Center.
Mason McTavish stripped Trent Frederic off the Oilers clearing attempt, and fed Poehling down the left-wing wall. Poehling then fed the puck in front, and with Darnell Nurse tied up with Chris Kreider, the puck deflected off Nurse and squeezed through Tristan Jarry. The puck had enough momentum to slide over the goal line for the winner.
“I thought I saw some white (between the puck and the goal line) when I was behind the net,” Poehling said, “and then everyone was celebrating. Did that go in? I’m like, I think so. I thought right away that it crossed the line.”
While the Ducks celebrated, the referees did not make any initial call, and after a huddle, they declared a goal on the ice. The play then went to review, where the referees determined the puck did completely cross the goal line to send the standing-room sellout crowd into a frenzy.
“It looked like it could’ve gone anywhere, but when I saw Poehls behind the (net) celebrate like he knew it was in, reminded me of somebody else that something like that in a comparable overtime period,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said, alluding to Patrick Kane’s famous 2010 Stanley Cup-winning overtime goal. “Long way to go to dream like that, but you look at the replay, and we all thought it was in. That was obviously a huge win for us, a huge goal and the first time we got the lead.”
The Ducks take a 3-1 series lead into Game 5 on Tuesday back in Edmonton with a chance to win their first playoff series since the 2017 second round, when Anaheim beat the Oilers in seven games. This is the Ducks’ first 3-1 series lead since the 2015 second round against Calgary.
Edmonton had won six consecutive Game 4s when trailing 2-1 in a series and 10 straight Game 4s overall. The Oilers are now 19-5 in Games 4-7 in Knoblauch’s tenure. Edmonton has seen a lead erased in all four games of this series.
“I guess the goal call on the ice was probably after 60-to-90 seconds after, maybe even more,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “They huddled and they got to the center ice and then they made the call that it was a good goal. So, I don’t know. It wasn’t very definitive.”
The Ducks are no strangers to comebacks with this their 10th multi-goal comeback win of the season, and first of the playoffs. That’s the most in the league this season, along with their 13th total third-period comeback win.
“We just believe in ourselves,” Poheling said. “I thought we played great, honestly. They got off to a start where they got a few bounces, but that’s the thing with our team. We’ve done it all year, and I think it just teaches you throughout a season that, hey, you’re never out of it, and the belief on the bench is something you truly feel.”
Cutter Gauthier and Mikael Granlund scored power play goals for the Ducks. Jackson LaCombe and John Carlson each picked up two-point nights.
Kasperi Kapanen, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Evan Bouchard scored for Edmonton, with Nugent-Hopkins and Bouchard finding the net on the power play.
Lukas Dostal made 24 saves in the win, including a key breakaway stop on Connor McDavid late in the third. Tristan Jarry made 34 saves in the loss, his first start of the series.
Edmonton needed a response in Game 4, and they came firing out the gates for one, as Kapanen scored Edmonton’s fourth straight game-opening goal in this series just 38 seconds in. Kapanen outmuscled Pavel Mintyukov in the slot for the turnaround shot around Dostál and Kapanen’s fourth goal in four games.
Just under six minutes later, Edmonton picked up its second 2-0 lead of the series, as Mintyukov found himself on the wrong end of a netfront play again. Nugent-Hopkins’ power play shot was stopped by Dostál’s left pad, but with Mintyukov tied up with Zach Hyman in the crease, the rebound went directly off Mintyukov’s trailing skate and into the net.
Anaheim mounted a push late in the period, but Jarry showed why the Oilers put faith into him with the mid-series goalie change stopping all 13 Ducks shots in the opening 20 minutes.
In the second period, Anaheim was finally able to lean into its red hot power play and bring this game level.
Midway through the frame, Gauthier was given the time and space to absolutely rip a shot from the right dot in a mailbox-sized slot above Jarry’s glove for his third goal of the series and Anaheim’s first of the game, 2-1.
In the final two minutes of the period, the Ducks got a power play off a dangerous-looking Hyman knee on Beckett Sennecke, who luckily did not take an injury on the play.