Despite the win, Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal came 5.6 seconds away from earning his first shutout of the year (both regular season and playoffs), but Vegas' Mark Stone scored his third goal of the postseason.
He would've been the first goalie in franchise history since Frederik Andersen (2016), now on the Carolina Hurricanes, to record a playoff shutout.
The series now heads to Anaheim for Game 3 (May 8th) and Game 4 (May 10th).
Recap & Highlights
After not much going for either team in the first period, the Ducks were gifted a golden opportunity with a 5-on-3 power play following a Jack Eichel double-minor for high-sticking.
But the Ducks couldn't put one in net, despite being one of the best power play teams in the playoffs this year. Anaheim headed into the second period outshooting the Knights 13-4, and it eventually paid off after 31 minutes of play.
Beckett Sennecke put the Ducks up 1-0 in the second period with his second goal of the playoffs, assisted by Jeffrey Viel (1) and Ryan Poehling (1).
Sennecke joined Stanislav Chistov (2003), Emerson Etem (2013), and Ryan Getzlaf (2006) as the only players in Ducks history to score multiple playoff goals at 20 years of age or younger.
After a nothing burger from the Golden Knights in the first two periods, going 0-for-2 on power plays and only putting up 15 shots, it backfired in the third period when the Ducks doubled their lead.
Leo Carlsson scored his fourth of the playoffs to make it a 2-0 game with 13:24 left in the third on the setups from Troy Terry (6) and Chris Kreider (5).
A big opportunity to cut the lead in half presented itself to Vegas after Poehling was given a two-minute minor penalty for tripping, putting the Knights on their third power play of the game.
But, once again, the Knights couldn't get anything done after the Ducks' penalty kill unit put all of their bodies on the line to stop every shot possible.
Vegas pulled goaltender Carter Hart with four minutes to go for the man advantage, but it backfired just seconds later.
Jansen Harkins scored on the empty net for his first of the playoffs to make it 3-0 before Stone's last-second goal as they took Game 2.
Anaheim outshot Vegas 28-24, while the hits were almost even, 38-37 in Vegas' favor.