Leo Carlsson and Lukas Dostal Lead Ducks Past Golden Knights 4-3 in Season Opener
- 🔑 Anaheim beat Vegas 4-3 in regulation at T-Mobile Arena on Friday, October 2, 2026, in the Ducks’ season opener and the Golden Knights’ second game. Leo Carlsson had a goal and an assist, and Lukas Dostal made 27 saves on 30 shots in the win.
- Beckett Sennecke scored with eight seconds left in the first period. Alex Killorn (1:33), Jeff Malott (2:28) and Carlsson (7:03) then scored in the second period to make it 4-0. Anaheim did not score again, and Vegas outshot the Ducks 30-20 over the game.
- Vegas scored three times in the third period: Shea Theodore at 4:38, Tomas Hertl on the power play at 6:07, and Braeden Bowman at 17:10, which left 2:50. Goalie Carter Hart (16 saves on 20 shots) was pulled for an extra attacker with about two minutes left, but Vegas did not score again.
- After Theodore’s goal made it 4-1, Anaheim challenged for offside. The goal stood after video review, the play-by-play logged a delay-of-game minor on the Ducks for the unsuccessful challenge, and Hertl scored on the resulting power play 1:29 after Theodore’s goal, cutting the lead to 4-2.
- Defenseman Noah Warren, a second-round pick (42nd overall) of Anaheim in 2022, made his NHL debut and earned his first career point with an assist on Killorn’s goal, playing 9:33. Carlsson was named first star, Theodore second and Dostal third.
- Records after this game: Anaheim 1-0-0, Vegas 1-1-0. The Ducks host Florida in their home opener on Sunday, October 4 (5 p.m. PT), and Vegas plays at Vancouver that evening. No betting odds, spreads or win probabilities are used anywhere on this page.
Anaheim beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-3 in regulation on Friday night, October 2, 2026, opening its 2026-27 season with a win at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Leo Carlsson had a goal and an assist and Lukas Dostal stopped 27 of 30 shots as the Ducks held on after Vegas scored three times in the third period. The game was a rematch of last spring’s Western Conference second-round series and was Vegas’s second game of the season. This recap is current as of Saturday, October 3, 2026.
What was the final score of Ducks vs. Golden Knights?
Anaheim won 4-3 in regulation, with no overtime or shootout, on Friday, October 2, 2026. Puck drop at T-Mobile Arena was 7 p.m. Pacific (10 p.m. Eastern), which is why some data feeds list the game on October 3 in UTC. The Ducks led 1-0 after one period and 4-0 after two, and Vegas outscored them 3-0 in the third. Vegas had the edge in shots on goal, 30-20, and outshot Anaheim in every period.
| Time | Goal | ANA-VGK |
|---|---|---|
| P1 19:52 | Sennecke (ANA) | 1-0 |
| P2 1:33 | Killorn (ANA) | 2-0 |
| P2 2:28 | Malott (ANA) | 3-0 |
| P2 7:03 | Carlsson (ANA) | 4-0 |
| P3 4:38 | Theodore (VGK) | 4-1 |
| P3 6:07 | Hertl (VGK, PP) | 4-2 |
| P3 17:10 | Bowman (VGK) | 4-3 |
How did the Ducks build a 4-0 lead?
Anaheim scored four unanswered goals, one in the first period and three in the first 7:03 of the second, even though Vegas had the shot edge through two periods, 17-14. Beckett Sennecke put the Ducks ahead with eight seconds left in the first, with assists from Carlsson and Tristan Luneau. Alex Killorn made it 2-0 at 1:33 of the second on a tip-in, assisted by Noah Warren and Mikael Granlund. Jeff Malott scored on a deflection 55 seconds later, with assists from Tim Washe and Jackson LaCombe. Carlsson’s snap shot at 7:03, assisted by A.J. Greer and Cutter Gauthier, made it 4-0.
How did Vegas get back within one goal?
Vegas scored three times in the third period and pulled within 4-3 on Braeden Bowman’s goal at 17:10, which left 2:50 on the clock. Shea Theodore scored at 4:38 with assists from Brett Howden and Jack Eichel, and Tomas Hertl scored on the power play at 6:07, assisted by Mitch Marner and Eichel. Bowman’s even-strength goal had assists from Victor Olofsson and Brayden McNabb. Vegas outshot Anaheim 13-6 in the period, and Carter Hart left the net for an extra attacker with about two minutes remaining. Neither team scored again.
What happened with the offside challenge on Theodore’s goal?
Anaheim challenged Theodore’s goal for offside, the goal stood after review, and the Ducks were given a two-minute delay-of-game minor. The league’s play-by-play logs the challenge stoppage and the penalty, for an unsuccessful challenge, at the same moment, 4:38 of the third period. Hertl scored on the resulting power play at 6:07, 1:29 after Theodore’s goal, which cut the Ducks’ lead from 4-1 to 4-2. We are reporting the sequence as the league’s data records it.
Who were the three stars, and how did the goalies do?
The NHL’s three stars were Carlsson (one goal, one assist), Theodore (one goal) and Dostal. Dostal stopped 27 of 30 shots, a .900 save percentage, and played all 60 minutes. Hart stopped 16 of 20 shots and was on the ice for 57:40 before the extra attacker came on. Gauthier, who also had an assist, and Hertl each had five shots on goal, and Eichel had two assists. Only five minor penalties were called: tripping on Vegas’s Ivan Barbashev and Rasmus Andersson, holding the stick and high-sticking on Anaheim’s Gauthier, and the bench delay-of-game minor.
Who made his NHL debut for the Ducks?
Defenseman Noah Warren made his NHL debut and earned his first career point with the assist on Killorn’s goal. According to the league’s recap and player records, Warren was Anaheim’s second-round pick (42nd overall) in 2022 and spent last season with the San Diego Gulls of the AHL. He played 9:33 in the opener.
Why was this game a playoff rematch?
The Ducks and Golden Knights met in the 2026 Western Conference second round, and Vegas won the series 4-2. Anaheim had reached that round by beating Edmonton 4-2. Vegas went on to sweep Colorado in the conference final and lost the Stanley Cup Final to Carolina in six games.
What’s next for the Ducks and Golden Knights?
The Ducks host Florida in their home opener at Honda Center on Sunday, October 4, 2026, at 5 p.m. Pacific, and Vegas plays at Vancouver the same day at 6 p.m. Pacific. Those times come from the league’s schedule as of Saturday, October 3. After this game, Anaheim’s record is 1-0-0 and Vegas’s is 1-1-0, and both will change once Sunday’s games are played.
For the rest of the league’s opening week and the key dates ahead, see our NHL 2026-27 season guide .
How we verified this
Final score, scorers and shots. The 4-3 regulation result, all seven goals (scorer, period, clock time and assists), the three stars, the goalie saves and the shot totals (Anaheim 20, Vegas 30) were checked against four independent sources: the league’s raw game data (box score, play-by-play and game summary, all marked final), the league’s own game recap, the Associated Press game story and a second wire-service recap. All agree on the score and the seven scorers. Clock times, assists and shot counts come from the league’s raw data, and the league recap’s goal times match it. The 13-6 Vegas edge in third-period shots and the 8-7, 9-7, 13-6 period splits are counts of shots on goal in the raw play-by-play, which sum to the official 30 and 20.
Date and puck drop. The raw data lists a 02:00 UTC start on October 3 with a Las Vegas offset of UTC-7, which is 7 p.m. Pacific and 10 p.m. Eastern on Friday, October 2. Some feeds label the game October 3 because of the UTC date, and we use the local date. A national sports network’s scoreboard also lists the game on October 2.
When Hart left the net. The raw box score gives Hart 57:40 of ice time, and the play-by-play situation codes show Vegas with an extra skater from about 17:42 of the third period, roughly 2:20 left. One wire recap says 2:15 remained. We followed the raw data but wrote “about two minutes” because the sources differ by a few seconds. Some recaps do not mention the pull at all. No empty-net goal was scored.
The offside challenge. The challenge stoppage and the delay-of-game minor for an unsuccessful challenge are both logged at 4:38 of the third period in the league’s play-by-play, and the power-play goal is logged at 6:07, a gap of 1:29. The league recap says the goal was upheld after video review. We report the sequence as the league records it, with no quotes and no opinion on the call.
Noah Warren’s debut. The league’s recap says it was his NHL debut and first career point, a wire recap says the same, and the league’s player record shows one NHL game and one assist. His draft position (second round, 42nd overall, 2022) and 9:33 of ice time are from the league’s data.
Context and schedule. The 2026 playoff results (Vegas over Anaheim 4-2 in the second round, Vegas over Colorado 4-0, Carolina over Vegas 4-2 in the Final) are from the league’s playoff data. The October 4 start times and the Honda Center and Rogers Arena venues are from the league’s club schedules. The records after the game (Anaheim 1-0-0, Vegas 1-1-0) come from a national sports network’s recap and match the league’s results for both teams.
Left out on purpose. Attendance is omitted because only one source reported it, and no player or coach quotes are used. Automated page summaries of box scores garbled several names and times during research, so every name, time and number here was taken from raw data and cross-checked against article text.
Still moving at write time (as of Saturday, October 3, 2026). The game is final and its facts will not change. The two October 4 game lines and the team records go stale after October 4.
No betting odds, spreads, or win-probability models appear anywhere on this page.