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LAS VEGAS — Not only did the Ducks finally conquer the Vegas Golden Knights but they did so impressively – even as their main man in goal has another injury that might put his status in question for more upcoming critical contests.

One of the Ducks’ best defensive efforts of the season assisted Ryan Miller, as the old pro came on for an ailing John Gibson to secure a 2-0 victory Monday over the Golden Knights on the strength of goals by Jakob Silfverberg and Josh Manson.

In front of a boisterous sellout crowd of 18,267 at T-Mobile Arena, Silfverberg broke out of a slump with a first-period score and Manson added some insurance to delight the many Ducks fans who made it to Sin City on a holiday weekend. Miller stopped all 20 shots he faced in the third period.

“Our goaltending was good tonight,” Manson said. “Really good for us. They held us in the game. Millsy came in and made some great stops to keep us in the game at the end.”

Miller has had to play the role of reliever at times, finishing games after Gibson suffered an injury. It has happened four times. Most recently, it occurred in Boston when Gibson developed a lower-body injury and the veteran came on to close out a 3-1 win. So this was nothing new.

“A handful of times,” Miller noted. “We’ve found ways to make it work. I’m happy again to help the team lock up some points.”

A starter for many years, Miller is evolving into a full-fledged backup in his first season with the Ducks. But with the amount times that Gibson has had to leave games early, perhaps he should be their closer.

“Pitchers can transition their career, I guess,” Miller joked. “Maybe I can as a goalie.”

With five strong starts in his pocket since coming back from his injury on Jan. 30, Gibson had another sharp effort working with 13 saves when his night ended in the waning seconds of the middle period.

Vegas forward Alex Tuch went into the Anaheim zone on a forechecking mission and clipped Gibson’s left skate, with the netminder spinning wildly around to his right and falling to the ice. After briefly being looked at by Ducks trainer Joe Huff, Gibson finished out the period but skated slowly off the ice into the room.

Once the Ducks came out for the third, it was Miller who took over the net. And the veteran had his A-game, making stops and absorbing pucks for faceoffs.

“Cool, calm and collected,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. “A veteran that shows his moxie. Shows his experience. He’s not going to be rattled. He has a mechanism in him, it’s like a switch that he turns on. And he’s not all over the place. He’s in control and that’s a calming effect for our guys.”

As far as Gibson, all Carlyle would say is that he has a lower-body injury. It has been a recurring theme with the goalie, whether this season or others. But the Ducks (30-20-11) survived and held their third-place spot in the Pacific Division by beating the leader with the most points in the NHL for the first time in four meetings.

Vegas (39-16-4) had a 14-1-1 record against Pacific opponents entering the game. The only two losses before Monday were to Edmonton.

“We haven’t beaten this hockey club this year so it’s always nice when you come in and beat the first-place hockey team,” Carlyle said.

Back-to-back wins in Chicago and Minnesota helped move the Ducks into playoff position and they did so with their leading scorer and best player being quiet. And when they are for more than a couple of games, it becomes very noticeable.

Coming in, Rickard Rakell hasn’t scored a goal in five straight contests and Ryan Getzlaf hadn’t registered a point in four straight. The success of the Adam Henrique-led third line has helped mask their ineffective offensive play of late.

Talking generally about his team’s play recently, Ducks general manager Bob Murray intimated that those two are among the players who need to step up their game.

“We need to see some desperation here,” Murray said. “The big boys have got to lead the way. They’ve got to lead the way with some desperation.”

The two worked to change that. Rakell got the second assist on both goals. The first one that got the Ducks a first-period lead came after Andrew Cogliano created the play with his speed to throw a puck toward the net that Silfverberg could deflect and change the direction on Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

While Getzlaf lost a potential second-period goal when Vegas coach Gerard Gallant correctly challenged that Rakell went offside on the scoring play, the Ducks’ captain took the shot that caromed in off Manson’s skate as the defender acted more as a power forward.

“Just get to the net,” Manson said of his greasy goal. “Getzy’s got the puck and go to the net. Nice to get those.”

It was enough offensive support for a team that played this game as if it was already in playoff mode. The Golden Knights ratcheted up their shot total in the third but the Ducks played the team game Murray has been looking for, supporting each other at every turn.

“We did a really good job of guys maybe not closest to the puck working harder to get there to support,” Silfverberg said. “It’s not only the one guy that’s chasing the puck carrier that’s moving. It’s more working as a five-man unit. When you do that, you turn pucks over and you limit space for the other team.”

It helped that the Ducks got a key lineup piece back in Ryan Kesler while Vegas had to go without three of its own in winger James Neal, defenseman Shea Theodore and center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare.

Kesler returned after not dressing against Minnesota on Saturday, with him dealing with the consequences of playing his hard, two-way game on a surgically-repaired hip.

“It’s always good to see him in the lineup,” said Silfverberg, who broke a nine-game goal drought. “You know he’s been battling ever since he got back. It’s tough seeing him in pain. But I think tonight, you could really tell he had that step in his legs. And hopefully he’ll continue to feel good and keep continuing to play for us.”

Buena Park has offered its football coaching position to former Fullerton standout player Dustin Sober, Coyotes principal Sonje Berg said Monday night.

Berg said Sober is going through the clearance process with the Fullerton Joint Union High School District but has been “formally” offered the Buena Park position.

Sober would replace Davis Lowery, who resigned after a 1-9 season as Buena Park’s first-year coach last season. Lowery replaced Anthony White, who in seven seasons turned the struggling Coyotes into consistent winners and a Freeway League champion in 2016.

Sober was a standout linebacker at Fullerton, graduating in 2002. He later played at Fullerton College and New Mexico State. In recent years, Sober has been an assistant coach at Fullerton College.

“He’s going to be an instant game-changer for us,” Berg said. “We’re very excited to have him on board!”

Please send football news to Dan Albano at dalbano@scng.com or @ocvarsityguy on Twitter

LAS VEGAS – Two-thirds of the way into the season, Ducks coach Randy Carlyle is seeing fit to try out some new defense pairings.

Their desire to have a good look at recent call-up Marcus Pettersson has necessitated some switching around that Carlyle already started to experiment with before the 21-year-old’s promotion to the big club.

For instance, Carlyle has taken to having Cam Fowler and Brandon Montour together after using Fowler and Kevin Bieksa as partners and putting Manson with Francois Beauchemin for most of the season.

Hampus Lindholm and Josh Manson had been a constant for the Ducks but the addition of Pettersson had Carlyle using the Swede with Manson while partnering Lindholm with Bieksa.

“You look at most teams in the league – and we’re not different – they have a top pair,” Carlyle said. “They have a top four. And it’s not to say that we don’t move people up and down and sideways and what not and mix and match.

“But again, if you look at our group on paper, we’d all say that Lindholm and Manson are your go-to pair right now and then Fowler and … and Fowler and … Fowler and Montour, can they play together? Are they an effective pair? Is it Fowler and Bieksa that are better than that?”

Pairing Fowler and Montour is a sign that Carlyle wants to see if the latter can be effective over the 20-plus minutes that a top-four defenseman usually logs. They’ve got three that do in Lindholm, Fowler and Manson but the Ducks appear to be in search of a fourth.

Carlyle said Pettersson “acquitted himself very well” in his first two NHL games and is encouraged by Montour’s recent work.

“We think Monty is starting to show more of the signs that he had at the beginning of the year,” Carlyle said. “Making better decisions on when to go (up ice). We’re trying to up-tempo our back end. Up-tempo our whole game.”

While situations can have defensemen play a shift or two without their regular partner, the ideal is to find three pairs that can become a constant. Or at least two. Carlyle didn’t think it was too late in the season to develop new combinations.

“We’re always constantly trying to find the right combination … the right mix,” Carlyle said. “Yes, we can say we’ve had it with Lindholm and Manson and they’ve been a shutdown pair, a strong pair. But when you integrate a young player into your lineup,, you want to make sure he’s got support too.

“It’s all those things. It’s a bunch of different factors that go into it.”

JOB ADJUSTMENT

Derek Grant was playing the most productive hockey in his nomadic career during the first half of the season and his ice time reflected that. The center topped 18 minutes five times and logged a season-high 22:08 on Nov. 25 at Los Angeles.

It was needed as both Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler were on the shelf due to injuries. The return of both and the addition of Adam Henrique not only drastically cut down that ice time but made Grant a part-time player.

But the Ducks see him as a valuable fill-in, which he was Saturday when Kesler was ailing and could not dress against Minnesota. Carlyle looks at Grant as part of their depth up the middle, a position he considers an area of strength. His appearance Monday was his fifth game in the team’s last seven.

“He’s part of our team,” Carlyle said. “Anytime adversity is presented to your group, you need people that are committed to the betterment of the team. And that’s a description I would use with Granter.

“He’s come back into our lineup and willing to make a contribution, be it two minutes, be it 20 minutes, be it five minutes. That’s what we’re looking for. He’s earned himself that right and that opportunity through his play.”

GARDEN GROVE A man was arrested Sunday night, Feb. 18, after making disturbing posts on Facebook indicating he posed a potential danger to the public, authorities said.

Shortly before 10 p.m., officers were contacted by a family member of 46-year-old Mark William Flicker of Garden Grove. The relative expressed concern about erratic Facebook posts from Flicker, adding he had ongoing family issues and had been drinking heavily, police said in a statement.

“Officers were shown the posts made by Flicker,” the statement says. “Those posts appeared to indicate that Flicker could potentially pose a danger to the public. Flicker did not specifically threaten any specific person, business, or place, but indicated he had ordered a firearm on-line and that he was full of rage and hate.”

As officers were preparing to go to Flicker’s residence, they received a phone call from another family member, who stated Flicker had gone to his mother’s residence in the 12900 block of Sylvan Street in Garden Grove to retrieve a firearm from a gun safe, the statement says.

As officers began arriving in the area, Flicker walked out of the residence and was detained.

Police determined Flicker had unsuccessfully attempted to open the gun safe without his mother’s permission, says the statement. He was arrested on suspicion of burglary and attempted grand theft of firearms and booked into the Orange County Jail. Bail was set at $2 million.

Police along with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office served Flicker with a firearms emergency protective order preventing him from legally possessing any guns pending further investigation. Early Monday, officers served a search warrant at Flicker’s residence and recovered several electronic devices, but did not find any firearms.

For fall, Faustine Steinmetz delved into her French roots and dug out 10 iconic staples from the French closet to reinvent. She picked relics from the Aughts including Levi’s 501s, the Burberry trenchcoat, Fendi baguette, cream silk shirt, monogrammed Gucci boots and an Hermès scarf, and reimagined them through her variegated lens.
Steinmetz sent out a lineup that cleverly showed the stages of deconstruction and reconstruction of each garment. The show kicked off with a series of sleeveless denim jackets buttoned to look like shirts. The right shoulder and collar were replaced with mint-colored silk panels and paired with high-waisted jeans. As the collection advances, the jeans and shirt are slowly transformed through felting until the garments’ original denim and silk fabrications are obliterated.
The second series of the collection is a reversal of that idea — a sleeveless mint silk shirt is worn with textured shorts. With each look that follows, the sleeves grow in length and the shorts become less felted until they are just a regular pair of shorts belted with a Chanel-inspired braided belt.
Steinmetz continued to riff on variations of these 10 key items, showcasing the masterful couture techniques she honed while in Paris. Among the highlights are

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Amidst the hustle of the City of London, filled with financial professionals rushing to return home after work, up-and-coming designer Dilara Findikoglu sought to create a female utopia where all types of women are accepted.
“I used to think that my ideal woman is a powerful boss woman. But as I grow up I’ve changed my mind a little bit; I realized that in order to be united, we all need to be accepted. There’s no elimination,” said the designer, who is best known for her rebellious streak and has not been afraid to use her shows as a platform to touch on politics, religion and feminism.
This season she wanted to evoke a more “peaceful” feeling, with a strong, thought-provoking lineup that brought together the androgynous and the romantic. Tailoring played a key role: traditional pinstripe jackets were cinched at the waist, others were spliced on the sides and paired with skirts featuring thigh-high slits, while more decadent versions were done in blue velvet and embellished with gold sequins.
Elsewhere, there were softer organza shift dresses held together with velvet bows and feminine tweed skirts, paired with beautifully embellished corsetry.
“Embellishment comes naturally to me because I’m a real collector. For this collection

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Fran Stringer maintained her focused vision for Pringle of Scotland, with a tightly edited collection that played on the brand’s biggest strength: knitwear.
She delivered a range of laid-back, luxuriously crafted pieces that showcased the Scottish label’s flair for ath-leisure and its commitment to craftsmanship, including cozy, oversized double-wool capes and hand-knitted joggers.
“I wanted to showcase the vast variety of knitwear’s capabilities. For instance, we were the first to print on knitwear in the Sixties,” said the designer, pointing to a cool Fair Isle knit with blue leopard-print panels spliced in.
Stringer also resurfaced some of the brand’s icons. She managed to tap into the nostalgic, logo-obsessed mood of today while remaining tasteful: diamond argyle motifs featured on mixed mohair capes and hand-intarsia cardigans, a typographic logo from the Eighties made a reappearance on a sporty red sweater; while an oversized, abstracted version of the label’s lion emblem was embroidered on an oversize sweater.
“The wonders of Scottish nature” were another point of reference for the designer, who worked with the jeweler Gala Colivet-Dennison to create agate embellishments that were embroidered on tops and capes.

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David Koma said he became “obsessed” with the ethnographic photography of 19th-century artist Edward Curtis, which led him to explore the traditional dress of Native American tribes and interpret their folklore and cultures for fall.
But when you put prevalent notions of what comprises the traditional dress of tribes like the Apache or Chinookan Indians into Koma and pull the lever, what comes out is far from a pastiche of silver and turquoise belt-buckles, feather headdresses and fringed suede chaps. Working in a pared-back palette of black, white, red and violet, he translated those tribal codes through a Sixties Mod lens into a lineup of sexy, sassy clothes, marrying satin-shiny calf hair with hand-embroidered mesh, leather and shearling.
Nods to gaucho dress could be seen in the flared leather skirt and black turtleneck, worn with Western-inspired calf-hair boots; in the long sleeveless coat layered over a white knit and tall boots, and in the black calf-hair jean jacket, trimmed with black, white and red fringing.
A feathered headdress was reimagined into macramé embroidery, and sparkly crystal or laser-cut mirror embellishment and appeared as feathers of varying scale on red-carpet-ready dresses. And those turquoise and silver belt buckles? Koma adapted them into shiny circular clasps

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PARIS — The distinction between women’s wear and men’s wear may soon become obsolete: At least, you might be tempted to come to that conclusion from reading the list of 20 semifinalists for the fifth edition of the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers.
Among those competing for a grand prize of 300,000 euros, plus a year of coaching from experts at luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, are no fewer than six labels making gender-neutral clothes, two that design for both men and women, eight women’s wear designers and four men’s wear designers.
Those are the official designations; in effect, half the labels are treading a unisex line with their designs.
“Gender-neutral fashion, already present in former editions, has gained considerable ground, thus proving that the prize echoes the recent evolutions in fashion,” said Delphine Arnault, the force behind the initiative and a key talent scout at family-controlled LVMH, the parent of brands including Louis Vuitton, Dior and Fendi.
“Naturally, LVMH is interested in celebrating creativity in fashion, regardless of the category it fits in. However, the gender-neutral brands we have selected must also demonstrate an ability to produce quality clothing. Some of our designers, such as J.W. Anderson, actually pioneered this

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CHIC SHOP: Anna Dello Russo has partnered with Net-a-porter for a flash sale of her famously flamboyant wardrobe. Comprising 150 pieces and spanning brands from Balenciaga and Gucci to Prada and Céline, the sale is to start from Feb. 25, with items priced from 15 pounds for accessories to 700 pounds for outerwear.
After being sold via Instagram Stories, 100 percent of the purchase price will be donated to the British Fashion Council Education Fund. In an Instagram video announcing the partnership, Dello Russo said: “I wish that my clothes go to the next generation to bring them to life again. This is a very important project to me because it is all about the new generation. This one is for you guys.”

In addition to the flash sale, Net will also be selling “AdR Book: Beyond Fashion,” Dello Russo’s first book, published by Phaidon.

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