Brayden McNabb was ejected in the first period of Game 5 on Tuesday after a hit on Ryan Poehling sparked a five-minute major for interference and a game misconduct at T-Mobile Arena. The call was reviewed by video, and McNabb was sent off after the hit left Poehling on the ice before he was escorted to the locker room.
The penalty quickly changed the game. Anaheim turned the power play into a Beckett Sennecke goal for a 1-0 lead, but Vegas answered 3:37 later when Pavel Dorofeyev scored on the man advantage to tie it.
The moment carried extra weight because the Golden Knights and Ducks had split the first four games of the second-round series, making Tuesday’s matchup a pivotal turn in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. McNabb’s night ended midway through the opening period, and the extent of Poehling’s apparent injury was not immediately clear, leaving both teams to play on after a sequence that could shape the rest of the series.
What happened next on the ice mattered as much as the punishment itself: Anaheim cashed in immediately, Vegas responded just as fast, and a game that began with a heavy collision was suddenly back on level terms. For McNabb, the review and ejection turned a routine defensive shift into one of the defining moments of the night.
