While the Anaheim Ducks didn’t have huge expectations entering the year, some early-season success admittedly built a little bit of excitement around the team. However, things quickly fell apart, and now entering the final couple weeks of the season, the Ducks sit third-last in the NHL.
To highlight some of the headlines, the team has dealt with injury trouble to top players, the penalty kill has been a disaster, and the Ducks rank amongst the three-worst teams in the league in both goals for and goals against. Ultimately, there’s just very little going their way.
Rather than breaking down the negatives though, which have dominated the year, here are five positives from the otherwise bleak season, before the final four games of the year.
2023 OFFSEASON ADDITIONS WORKED OUT
The offseason additions ahead of the 2022-23 season were a bit of a disaster that year. John Klingberg’s career fell off a cliff after arriving in Anaheim, while Ryan Strome failed to provide the impact the team was expected to, and Frank Vatrano and Dmitry Kulikov were only okay.
This year, however, the three big additions in Radko Gudas, Alex Killorn and Ilya Lyubushkin generally worked out quite well.
Gudas has probably been the team’s most reliable defender. Coming off the Stanley Cup final run with Florida which likely drove up his free agency value, Gudas has been everything the Ducks needed. He’s been very good defensively, and added some toughness to the team’s blue line, made only more important by how young the team’s defense group is around him. To contrast, while Cam Fowler is sitting a minus-37 rating this season, Gudas is at a plus-11.
With Killorn, the two-time Stanley Cup champion was out for a good chunk of the beginning of the season and then did start a little slow, but since December, he’s scored at a pace of 29 goals and 53 points per 82. Killorn’s skillset isn’t necessarily based around high-end offensive talent, but he’s a well-rounded, hardworking winger who’s strengthened the top-nine. You can argue he’s overpaid, but we more or less knew that was the case from the time of the signing.
Then with Lyubushkin, he was a good piece on the right side, but we knew he was likely always destined to be a trade deadline chip. He performed well in his role in his 55 games with the Ducks, and like Gudas, was able to add a shutdown presence within the group.
FRANK VATRANO’S BREAKOUT SEASON
Maybe one of the biggest surprises of the Ducks’ whole season has been Vatrano’s offensive outburst.
Currently sitting at 32 goals and 55 points, Vatrano has obliterated his previous career highs. He’s always had an excellent shot, but this seemed like a level that was never really expected for the high-intensity winger.
Vatrano earned his way to a first appearance at the NHL All-Star game as a result, and in a season where there wasn’t a ton to be excited about, Vatrano’s unlikely success story has been a fun one to track.
Having just turned 30 years old, Vatrano probably isn’t going to be a long-term piece for the Ducks, but there’s always the option to explore a trade for the winger over the summer, or at next year’s deadline. There was likely a lot of interest in the winger at the deadline, and definitely a case to be made that Anaheim should’ve capitalized on a big return while his value was high. But regardless, Vatrano could either be a key member of the top-six next year as well, and/or a possible trade chip.
STRONG RETURNS AT TRADE DEADLINE
Speaking of the trade deadline though, all things considered, the Ducks did pretty well this year. This was also coming off a fairly disastrous 2022-23 trade deadline, where Anaheim only ended up fetching some mid-round picks (and Nikita Nesterenko) for John Klingberg and Dmitry Kulikov.
Lyubushkin brought back an expected return of a third-round pick, but it’s the Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick deal where Anaheim came away looking good. The Ducks managed to add another first-round pick as the centerpiece of the return, which also included a fifth-round pick.
At the end of the day, the Ducks are still building for the future and draft capital remains key. At the very least, it gives them flexibility where they could always move the pick to try to get a young piece to help now.
Aside from Anaheim making a larger move and deadline away someone with a bit of a term left like Vatrano, the trade deadline went about as well as anyone could’ve hoped for.
CARLSSON, MINTYUKOV, AND LACOMBE MADE AN IMPACT AS ROOKIES
This season has seen the next wave of Ducks talent getting integrated into the lineup, and between Leo Carlsson, Pavel Mintyukov and Jackson LaCombe, Anaheim took a jump towards building their long-term core.
Carlsson was subject to some load management early in the year, then has dealt with injuries since, but when in the lineup the center has already looked extremely comfortable. Carlsson has transitioned well to the NHL at just 19 years old, scoring at a pace of 45 points per 82 through his 51 games.
He’s already been centering the team’s top line, and all signs point to Carlsson being the future top center Anaheim was hoping for when they took him second overall.
Meanwhile, Pavel Mintyukov was a more surprising success story. Coming into the year, it looked like Olen Zellweger was probably more likely to crack the roster, but Mintyukov was able to snag the spot instead. Mintyukov managed 28 points through 63 games this year, and there shouldn’t be any doubt about the defenseman taking on a long-term, top-four role in the Ducks’ future.
LaCombe’s ceiling may not be nearly as high as those of Carlsson and Mintyukov, but he also stepped in with almost no NHL experience and was immediately tasked with a big role on the Ducks’ blue line. It’ll be interesting to see where LaCombe fits as the team continues to integrate more of their defense prospects into the lineup.
One of those prospects also worth mentioning is of course Olen Zellweger, who’s joined the Ducks for the end of the season. There’s no denying Zellweger’s high-end offensive upside, and we can expect him to be a full-time member of the defense group next year.
MCTAVISH AND DOSTAL TOOK STEPS
While Trevor Zegras may have had a bit of a nightmare of a year, two other players the Ducks will rely on as a big part of their future saw more positives in their respective seasons. Mason McTavish continued to slowly progress in his development despite his injury trouble, seeing his offensive output take a bit of a jump from a pace of 17 goals and 44 points per 82 last year, up to 24 goals and 54 points per 82 this season. Having just turned 21 years old, it's just a matter of how much better McTavish can get from here, but he's set to be locked into a top-six center role for the forseeable future.
Meanwhile, though Lukas Dostal’s numbers may not show it, this was a positive year for the reminder. He saw a huge jump in workload, now at 41 games this season as opposed to just 19 last year, and has essentially played in a tandem with John Gibson. Dostal is clearly viewed as the future in net, and even though his .898 save percentage is certainly nothing special, he’s still posted better numbers than Gibson despite being just 23 years old. This was hopefully the first step to him really taking over as the team’s long-term starter, and as Anaheim can improve defensively, Dostal's numbers will look a lot better.
So while the Ducks still have a long ways to go, and this was a disappointing year when the hope was we’d see a more competitive team, the organization is still heading in right direction (even if slowly).
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