Ducks to Face Golden Knights in Round Two of 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs

The Ducks now know their second round opponent. They'll be heading to Sin City to face the Vegas Golden Knights after dispatching the Edmonton Oilers in six games. The Golden Knights eliminated the Utah Mammoth in six games, winning 5-1 in Game 6 on Friday night.

Anaheim defeated Vegas in all three regular season games, with two of those matchups going to overtime. All three games finished 4-3, too. It was just the second time since Vegas entered the league in 2017 that Anaheim had won the season series.

Like their Round one opponent, the Golden Knights have a wealth of playoff experience on their roster. Many of the players from the 2023 Cup-winning team are still on the roster, led by forwards Jack Eichel and Mark Stone. Eichel's eight points in the first round were tied for the third-most among all skaters.

Jackson LaCombe took on the assignment of matching up against Connor McDavid, one of––if not the––best players in the world, and did it with aplomb. LaCombe also collected nine points in his first Stanley Cup Playoffs series, tied for second among all skaters in the first round. He and Jacob Trouba will likely take on the responsibility of matching up against the top line of Eichel, Ivan Barbashev and Pavel Dorofeyev. Dorofeyev scored in the final minute of Game 5, tying the game and grabbing his third goal of the game.

The biggest factor in this series will be goaltending. Lukáš Dostál was not at his best for Anaheim, displaying a .874 SV% and a 3.87 GAA. He was chased from Game 5 after allowing three goals on nine shots, but bounced back in Game 6 with 25 saves on 27 shots against. "I feel like I kind of got that day and a half," Dostál said after Game 6. "And that I have the time to recover physically and mentally."

Three different goaltenders started a portion of the regular season for the Golden Knights, with Carter Hart taking the reins in the final stretch. Hart won his last six games of the regular season, but wasn't much better in the first round than Dostál, carrying an .876 SV% through six games.

"We're gonna have a couple of days now, so I think it's gonna be important, physically and mentally," Dostál said. "We're gonna make sure that we're gonna be ready for the next one because it might be a completely different opponent than Edmonton is. That's what's so magical about the playoffs. When you keep advancing, you get to play different teams with different styles."