Western Conference finals begin in Anaheim

That’s not exactly how it happened, though.

It was James Neal who potted the victor in overtime in Game One off a feed from P.K. Subban for his fourth goal of the playoffs. That’s what ultimately matters.

If anything, this one defied logic in the sense that Anaheim started slowly, then managed to pull itself together as the game unfolded.

Nashville dominated the tired Ducks, and Forsberg forced a turnover on a forecheck before tipping Matt Irwin’s shot through Gibson for his fourth goal. With a solid defensive scheme limiting chances in front of him, Rinne has posted a.951 save percentage and 1.37 goals-against average, numbers far above his career average. Arrival of that came midway through Game 1 after allowing the Predators to grab a 2-1 lead. The Predators had been putting on the pressure in the extra period with a 6-2 shot advantage before Neal’s seventh attempt did the trick.

“They were physical and we know they’re a physical team”. He’s been even better in the playoffs with 15 points in 11 games.

An eighth-place finish during the regular season didn’t afford the Predators home-ice advantage, so they’ve chose to steal it instead. They were in the conference finals just two years ago back in 2015, a loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, and at least have Stanley Cups on their resume. Rinne picked up right where he left off last season when Nashville eliminated Anaheim from the first round in seven games, but Gibson was similarly outstanding.

“Peter brings out offensive confidence to his players., and I think it’s obvious in all the stops he’s been”, Holmgren said. “We’re just focused on Game Two and winning that game, and we’ll be ready”. “You can analyze the penalty kill in the last series specifically against Edmonton, and you can definitely poke some holes in it, but really as a group, we felt that there were some positives to that that came out of it. We have done that stuff extremely well in the playoffs, we just got to get back to it”. The Ducks went scoreless on four power plays. Converting on just one of those opportunities could have changed the outcome entirely. And the one thing that we’ve stated is that the will that has been demonstrated by the penalty killing units that our power play has been up against has exceeded our power play’s will. “We need to emotionally get ourselves involved in the game right away, and we have to have a strong game, and I think we need to – I think the Game 7 against Edmonton was the team that we need to see tomorrow, which was a tight-checking, relentless team that went at them”.

That will need to be fixed in a hurry.

“It’s going to take some time to get over it”, said McDavid, the 20-year-old captain.

“The way we’ve played the last half of the season where we’ve learned to deal with adversity, we needed that again tonight”, Getzlaf said after Game 7.

The Ottawa Senators – the Penguins’ opponent in the Eastern Conference final, which begins Saturday – have never won the Stanley Cup in their modern incarnation.

NOTES: Anaheim remained without two key injured veterans. Any little break helps. They are not going to quake in their skates simply because they lost the first game at home. Ideally, they’ll be able to drag this series out and wear the Preds down. It was Neal’s fourth goal of the playoffs.

“For us to come down here with a team so young and to compete with the Ryan Getzlafs and the Corey Perrys and all those guys and still go toe-to-toe and still come out ahead, it’s a really big accomplishment”, he said. And that means work ethic, puck recovery, establishing shot and net presence.

In any goaltenders’ duel this postseason, it would be unwise to bet against Pekka Rinne. The Predators’ D-corps is going to cause problems, and lots of them, for the Ducks’ offense.