With a win in the regular season finale
Brian Urlacher Bears Jersey , the Anaheim Ducks secured home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs and finally know who they’ll face:
the Pacific Division-rival San Jose Sharks.
Rickard Rakell had a goal and assist, and Ryan Miller made 31 saves to lead the surging Ducks to a 3-0 win over the Arizona Coyotes Saturday night, helping
Anaheim clinch second place in the division.
Rakell scored for the 12th time in his last 19 games. He led the Ducks with a career-high 34 goals and 69 points this season.
”We know they have a good power play and they’re strong around the boards,” Rakell said of the Sharks. ”They have four good lines working really hard, so
we’re going to have to match that.”
Miller earned his fourth shutout of the season and 43rd of his career. It was also his 370th career win, moving him past Tom Barrasso for second place on the
all-time list among U.S.-born goalies.
”Definitely somebody I looked up to,” Miller said of Barrasso. ”Just happy to still be playing meaningful hockey and getting some wins.”
Adam Henrique scored his 24th of the season for Anaheim and added an assist, and Hampus Lindholm scored an empty-netter before the final buzzer.
The Ducks (44-25-13) won their fifth straight to finish 10-1-1 over the final 12 games.
The Coyotes (29-41-12) finished last in the Pacific, but went 17-9-3 in their last 29 games in a season they started 1-12-1.
”I thought we got better from October, so there’s some good positive things,” Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. ”We just ran out of gas tonight. For the most
part, the last 25, 30 games, we beat some good hockey teams and I thought some
of the young guys really progressed
49ers Jeremiah Attaochu Jersey , which is nice.”
The two teams combined for 26 penalty minutes.
Arizona goalie Antti Raanta appeared in his first game since signing a three-year, $12.75 million contract on Friday that will keep him from free
agency. He stopped 24 shots.
”Anaheim, they played a strong game,” Raanta said. ”Everyone left everything on the ice but sometimes puck luck isn’t on your side.”
An altercation between Coyotes defenseman Luke Schenn and Ducks forward Nick Ritchie in the first period resulted in minor penalties for both. That was
followed by another confrontation involving Arizona’s Brad Richardson and
Anaheim’s Derek Grant, with Richardson sent to the penalty box for two
minutes.
The power play for the Ducks helped when Henrique muscled in a backhand for a goal at 10:54 of the period, giving Anaheim a 1-0 lead. Rakell got an assist,
his 35th.
Richardson and Anaheim’s Corey Perry served five minutes for fighting early in the second period. The Ducks missed a chance to add to their lead when Jakob
Silfverberg hit the post with a shot at 13:07 of the second.
Rakell scored off a pass from Ryan Getzlaf with 3:43 left in the second. Getzlaf picked up his team-leading 50th assist of the season.
Perry earned his 400th assist on Henrique’s goal.
Anaheim logged its fifth consecutive 100-point season as a team.
”We had a plan. We tried to execute the plan. I’m not standing here saying it was perfect by any means, we had a lot of speed bumps on the way,” Ducks coach
Randy Carlyle said. ”We’ve got our group together here over the last six weeks
and we’ve played good enough to gain points.”
NOTES: The Coyotes brought up D Joel Hanley on emergency recall from Tucson, their AHL affiliate, in time for Saturday’s game. … C Clayton Keller, a rookie
and the team’s leading scorer this season, was voted Coyotes Most Valuable
Player for the season as voted on by local media. … Ducks C Antoine Vermette and
F Troy Terry played Saturday, Vermette’s first game since March 23 and Terry’s
second of the season. F Jason Chimera and F J.T. Brown were scratched. … A
moment of silence was held in remembrance of lives lost in the fatal bus crash
involving a junior hockey team in Canada Friday night.
UP NEXT
Ducks: Western Conference playoffs vs. San Jose
Coyotes: Offseason.
It was unheard of not that long ago
Vita Vea Youth Jersey , but now it has become somewhat commonplace: pitchers by committee.
A manager begins a game not with a starting pitcher but a reliever — and with more relievers to follow.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon, certainly not a stranger to taking a risk, tried it Saturday with poor results against a suddenly hot team that’s not playing like a
last-place club.
Don’t look for him to make the same mistake Sunday.
Maddon will run out one of his regular starters, right-hander Tyler Chatwood (3-5), at Great American Ball Park to try to avoid a four-game sweep by the
Cincinnati Reds, who are playing nothing like the tail-ending team they’ve been
all season.
The Reds mounted their second six-game win streak of the year — the first time they’ve done that since 2012 — by making quick work of the Cubs’
starter-by-committee plans Saturday during an 11-2 victory keyed by the pitching
of right-hander Anthony DeSclafani.
And, remarkably, keyed by the hitting of DeSclafani, who hit the Reds’ seventh grand slam in 33 days and their third of the week, but the first by a
Cincinnati pitcher since Bob Purkey against the Cubs on Aug. 1, 1959.
DeSclafani (3-1) posted his third win in a row while giving up two runs and three hits in 6 1/3 innings.
Cubs reliever-turned-starter Luke Farrell (2-3) was long gone by then, having been lifted with only a 2-1 deficit and two outs in the third inning. The Reds
went on to score eight more runs against the Cubs’ bullpen — and catcher Chris
Gimenez, who pitched the eighth inning.
DeSclafani’s shot came with two outs in the third inning against left-hander Brian Duensing, and it was a no-doubt drive well up into the left-field
stands.
“All in all
Authentic Jason Motte Jersey , I was trying to hit the ball hard somewhere and not strike out,” said DeSclafani, who came into the game with a .138 career
batting average. “I knew a fastball was coming and I tried to square it up, and
it happened to go out. … It was awesome. It all happened so quick.”
And slowly the Reds, once 8-27, are starting to play the way they expected when the season started. They’ve won nine of 11 and are 5-0 on their current
six-game homestand.
“When you get down in the standings, it can be deflating,” said Reds interim manager Jim Riggleman, who replaced Bryan Price during the terrible start. “But
they kept coming to the ballpark and working hard, and now we’re getting closer
to respectability in the standings, though we’re not there yet.”
The Cubs’ domination of the Reds is disappearing, too – going into the series, they’d won 43 of 62 against them in the last four seasons — as quickly
as DeSclafani’s homer reached the seats.
“We’re playing clean baseball — we’ve run the bases, made plays … are getting timely hits
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This probably isn’t encouraging to the Cubs’ faithful, either. Chatwood is 0-4 with a 4.18 ERA in five career appearances against the Reds. He has walked
63 batters in 68 1/3 innings this season.
Despite Chatwood’s lack of success against the Reds, only Joey Votto (2-for-10, .200) has double-digit at-bats against him.
Chatwood opposes right-hander Sal Romano (4-7), who is coming off his best start of the season — seven shutout innings against the Detroit Tigers on
Tuesday. Romano gave up four hits and struck out six despite walking four in a
9-5 Reds victory in which the Tigers scored all of their runs in the ninth
inning.
Romano’s last start against the Cubs wasn’t a good one. He surrendered seven runs and six hits in five innings of a 10-0 Chicago victory on May 19. He is 0-1
against them in two career games.
Maddon gave Kris Bryant the day off Saturday after he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in the Reds’ 6-3 win Friday as he tries to get some of the slumping
hitters going. Bryant is likely to be in the lineup Sunday against Romano.
“We’ve got to get (Willson) Contreras going, we’ve got to get KB (Bryant) and (Anthony Rizzo) going,” Maddon said. “I mean, these were our primary offensive
weapons last year, and they really haven’t hit their stride yet.”
.
