Golden Knights vs Ducks: Anaheim has confidence despite playoff experience gap

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Golden Knights’ second-round opponent in the Ducks could be considered a plucky, young team.

After all, the Ducks made the playoffs for the first time in eight years and are riding high after winning their first playoff series in nine years.

But they’re not merely happy just to be here.

“Within the room, belief’s in here,” Ducks right winger Troy Terry said Saturday. “Maybe there’s not as much pressure from media and outside sources and all that. We saw all the picks from the NHL voters and writers and stuff. But internally we have high expectations for ourselves, and we’re playing another team that within this room we know they’re a good team and we have lot of respect for but we swept them this year.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything going into the playoffs, but we know that we can play with them and beat them.”

The Knights and Ducks met three times in the regular season, and each time the Ducks won 4-3, including twice in overtime.

They’re plenty dangerous against the playoff-experienced Knights after knocking off the Oilers in six games in the opening around.

“We didn’t accomplish any goal yet obviously,” Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe said, “but we don’t really have any I’d say high expectation and kind of play as underdogs through the whole playoffs here.

“So we’re just trying to play our game and keep doing our thing and just keep rolling.”

LaCombe has stepped forward in the postseason with eight assists and a goal in the Edmonton series. He’s in his third full NHL season while top goal scorer Cutter Gauthier is in his second full season.

“It’s like crazy to me that people are just now figuring out about him sometimes, and I realize that we haven’t been on this stage and that’s when guys get seen,” Terry said of LaCombe. “It’s been almost wild to me that people haven’t realized how good this kid is. Every night we play, he controls the game with his legs.

“He’s the first guy on the attack for us. He’s playing (Oilers star Connor) McDavid. Literally he doesn’t have a weakness in his game, and he’s so calm and just a good person that we’re just excited for him.”

LaCombe downplayed the importance of the regular-season results against the Pacific Division champion Knights, who he noted, “New coach in there too, so they’re going to play hard.” He was alluding to John Tortorella, who took over the Knights on March 30.

Joel Quenneville is the Ducks’ Stanley Cup title-winning coach having led the Blackhawks to three of them, and he joined with LaCombe in saying they’ve been having has been having fun with this playoff opportunity.

“They’ve got their best stretch here late in the year and going into this round here, they’ve been very effective,” Quenneville said. “We’ll have some things we’ve got to worry about, but I think we’re exiting our last series on a high note knowing that we’d probably played our best game of the series and maybe the season, which is positive.

“It was a (Ducks) team that we thought, hey, if we get in the playoffs, we’d be excited about seeing what we could do with it.”