Ducks’ reward for Game 7 win is date with Rinne and Preds

And if there’s anywhere that Anaheim holds a decided edge over their opponents, it’s in the experience category.

In what stands to be a close series, we give the nod to the Ducks for one reason: Getzlaf, Perry and Carlyle each have a Cup ring and knows the grind it takes to win one.

World championships: Canada came from behind to beat France 3-2 in Paris, breaking a tie early in the third period when the puck deflected past goalie Florian Hardy off French teammate Jonathan Janil. “His tenacious style of play fits our team perfectly, and we feel confident using him in many different situations”. Both Daley and Fiddler have battled injuries, so they have been in and out of the lineup, but both could be big contributors going forward.

For once, wait till next year sounds more like a promise than an excuse.

“It probably helps that McDavid and him got a good chemistry, and it’s a flawless fit”, Grubauer said.

“We’re having a backyard party”, Terry Greanya said from his backyard Oilers party in the north Edmonton neighbourhood of Killarney Wednesday night. This is a marked improvement over their middle-of-the-pack finish to the regular season. The Vanderbilt Commodores watched the end of Sunday’s clincher on their video board after their own game.

If there’s an area of concern, however, it’s in goal. They allowed Anaheim to score three empty net goals with the extra attacker in the final three minutes and send the game into overtime. His hat trick was the first by a German-born player in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and he joined Hall of Famers Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson and Paul Coffey as the only players in Oilers history to put up five points in a playoff game.

It’s getting really hard to find the shortcomings of this Predators’ squad through two rounds. Four teams move on in these playoffs, but notice was served. They were again outshot as they were in every game of the series, this time only 29-28, but Rust and Patric Hornqvist scored on Braden Holtby, and Fleury shut the door. Edmonton’s first playoff run since 2006 ended with four losses in five games, but the Oilers’ young talent seems certain to make them a major factor in the West for years.

Finland’s Pekka Rinne made 23 saves and the Nashville Predators reached their first Western Conference final with a 3-1 win over St. Louis in the second round of the National Hockey League playoffs on Sunday.

The first was posted to Twitter on Tuesday, showing McDavid posing with an older couple. “The pressure’s on (the home team) right away”, Predators defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. The top four is so strong that there hasn’t been a single offensive star – not Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Artemi Panarin, Vladimir Tarasenko or Jaden Schwartz – that has been able to consistently break through.

From an elite defense to depth scoring to phenomenal goaltending, the Ducks will have their work cut out for them in this series.

After helping to contain Connor McDavid in the previous round, Kesler’s line will probably see plenty of Nashville’s top line of center Ryan Johansen flanked by Viktor Arvidsson and Filip Forsberg. The Angels now sit at 17-19 on the season, seven games behind Houston.

James Neal, Nashville: Alternate captain is one of Predators’ leaders. Of the 16 playoff teams, Anaheim ranks 14th in power play success rate (13.9%) and 25th on the penalty kill (69%). Two unanswered goals gave Anaheim a come-from-behind victory and a berth in the Western Conference Final. That’s the fourth-highest scoring season of his career. The rest of the league knows it too. Nashville has won both playoff matchups against the Ducks, including a seven-game series in the 2016 postseason.

Nashville has dropped five straight regular-season games in Anaheim but won three there in last year’s playoffs.

2010-11: Preds defeat Ducks 4-2 in Western Conference quarterfinal. Through the first two rounds the Ducks have faced – and overcome – much more significant obstacles than the Predators. But instead of continuing to crumble, the Ducks bounced back.