It’s been seven years since the Anaheim Ducks last made the playoffs, with the organization entering a much-needed rebuild but now still trying to work their way out of it.
For the past couple of years, the hope was Anaheim could take a bit of a step forward. While they’re now currently riding a three-game win streak and have finally managed to find some scoring as of late, it’s still ultimately been a disappointing year overall.
While signs still point to the Ducks positioning themselves for future success, they still remain below a .500 points percentage yet again this season. So with the Ducks still trying to take that step back to the playoffs, is the team making meaningful progress this season?
To just compare their record right now to last season, they're in a better spot. Anaheim's 21-23-6 record does put them comfortably on pace to surpass last season’s point totals, though it’s still not saying much. Their .480 points percentage is certainly better than their ugly .360 points percentage that had them finish 30th overall last season, but it’s still not the step you’d hope they would take.
With really limited offseason additions, the path to success this season was largely relying on their young core taking a step. Over the last half-decade, the Ducks have managed to build a pretty deep group of young, talented forwards, with Trevor Zegras, Mason McTavish, Leo Carlsson, and Cutter Gauthier. So far this season, that group has seen mixed results.
Zegras missed major time with a knee injury, but now that he’s back, the hope is that he can see better offensive results. In limited games last season, his production took a big step back, managing just 15 points across 31 games in 2023-24. Those numbers didn’t see any improvement before his injury this year, and to this point, his production has been about the same, with only five goals and 13 points across 28 games. Just a couple years removed from reaching 23 goals and 60-plus points in back-to-back years, hopefully Zegras can rebound now that he’s healthy, but at least in terms of the games he has played this year, Zegras’ offensive numbers haven’t met expectations.
McTavish also got off to a slow start, with his production dipping this season. Now, McTavish has been a big part of the Ducks’ recent offensive surge, scoring five goals over his last three games. It’s still a small sample size, and hopefully it’s the spark he needed to really get going, but to this point, it’s still been a mixed year.
Leo Carlsson has also experienced a bit of a sophomore slump. Carlsson’s offense has declined from his rookie year, on pace for an 82-game average of just 30 points. Cutter Gauthier has been a positive in his rookie season, but he’s also been a little hot and cold in terms of production. While he started slow, Gauthier did manage 20 points across a 38-game stretch, but has since cooled off with just one point in his last seven games. Still, for a rookie season where many others around him aren't adding a ton of offense, Gauthier has been good.
Obviously, all four are still only in their early-20s and have lots of room to grow. Zegras in particular has also managed to round out his game. But I’m not sure we’ve necessarily seen a ton of offensive growth through the first 50 games of the season, and it’s difficult to argue that any of them, maybe with the exception of Gauthier in his rookie season, have taken a major step forward offensively this season.
There are some positives across other parts of the forward group: Troy Terry has been the team’s biggest source of offense, while Frank Vatrano (who recently signed a three-year contract extension) and Ryan Strome have been solid contributors. But ultimately, the Ducks’ long-term success is going to heavily rely on the four young forwards, and so long as their production is inconsistent, the team is going to struggle to really take a step.
One the blue line, it’s also been a mixed bag. The Ducks had two major shake ups earlier in the season, in the form of adding Jacob Trouba from the New York Rangers, and sending veteran Cam Fowler to the St. Louis Blues. There’s obviously a very clear split between the three veterans in Trouba, Brian Dumoulin and Radko Gudas, and the younger group featuring Pavel Mintyukov, Jackson LaCombe, Olen Zellweger, and Drew Helleson. The goal is pretty clearly to have the three veterans as tough-to-play-against, shutdown defenders who can stabilize the group while their young defenders develop.
Between the three, Trouba has taken on a big role from the time he joined the team (leading all Ducks skaters in ice time per game), while Dumoulin has proven to be a pretty decent offseason addition, even if he’s cooled off a bit as the season has gone along. Gudas, on the other hand, who was the team’s most reliable defender last season, hasn't always provided the same stability as in 2023-24.
But similar to the forward group, the more important section of the defense group remains the group of young defenders. The Ducks are clearly looking to build around these players long-term, so their development remains vital for the defense group.
Jackson LaCombe may be the best surprise of the Ducks’ season, really adding more of an offensive element to his game. He leads all defensemen on the team in scoring by a mile, with nine goals and 23 points in 43 games. Entering the season, he seemed like a clear No. 3 when looking at the group of LaCombe, Mintyukov and Zellweger, but his play this season makes for a more interesting situation with the group of young, left-handed defenders.
On the other hand, the development of Mintyukov and Zellweger has been a little less convincing. Zellweger didn’t have the benefit of a full season of NHL hockey under his belt yet, and his 12 points in 38 games are an okay contribution, but he’s been in and out of the lineup lately.
Then with Mintyukov, he really hasn’t taken the step that he seemed poised to take this year, after a really promising rookie year. His offensive production has slipped, and he hasn’t made hugely meaningful progress in his own end to balance it out.
Drew Helleson didn’t start the year with the Ducks, but made his way into the lineup later in the year and has managed to stick around. He’s playing a really limited role, but he hasn’t looked out of place.
So overall, the progress of the young defenders has been okay, but not spectacular. Other than LaCombe, it’s hard to find another defender who’s really exceeded expectations, which is a concern when the Ducks are banking on development of young talent as their path back to relevancy.
One positive comes in goal, where both Lukas Dostal and John Gibson have provided the best goaltending the Ducks have had in a long time. For Dostal, his great start to the season in particular solidifies what we all thought: he’ll establish himself as the go-to guy in net in the coming years, and should be the long-term answer in the crease. Anaheim will have a chance to sign Dostal to a new contract this summer, and it’ll be interesting to see if they lock him up long-term.
I’ve posted a list of the NHL’s Top 50 Free Agents of 2025 at HockeyComparables.com, and Dostal is the one of two players on the team listed:
For Gibson, it’s the best he’s played with the team in many years. While staying healthy has proven to be a challenge for the netminder, his improved play this year (currently holding a .912 save percentage across 21 games) makes a trade more possible. Gibson’s value is probably the highest it’s been in a while, and especially now with less term remaining on his contract, there’s the chance the Ducks can get some value back.
But with a lot of the team’s young core not making visible progress this year compared to last, it’s a bit unclear as to where the team goes from here.
Tied into the team’s disappointing year, Greg Cronin’s coaching of his key, young players has been questionable at times. Cronin even notably seemed to downplay McTavish’s upside, notably referring to him as a ‘third-line’ guy, and it leads to the question as to whether Cronin is holding back the development of a lot of the young talent.
With the way the season has gone so far and few of the Ducks’ key young players making meaningful progress, if the team can’t build on their recent stretch over the remainder of the year, there’s a real argument that Cronin may not be the right coach to guide the team going forward.
There’s still more than a third of the season to go, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Ducks can really start to build some consistency and results in the final 32 games of the year, coming off a better stretch of games. But looking at the year as a whole, it’s tough to say the team is in a much better spot than last season, which is a troubling place to be for a young team.
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On another note, I also wanted to provide an update on my writing status at HockeyBuzz. As has been the case with the other teams I cover, I’ve had to step back from any kind of regular posting on the website (as has likely been clear from the lack of posts in recent months).
I will still be popping in for occasional articles, but I wanted to note that I won’t be returning to any kind of regular writing schedule at HockeyBuzz. I previously let site ownership know of this plan, in the case they wanted to add a second team writer.
I’d like to thank all readers who have been following my Ducks coverage here since April 2020. For anyone interested, I’ll be putting out more contract-specific articles at HockeyComparables.com over the coming months, with the first contract analysis article of 2025 now available, looking at Logan Thompson’s six-year extension with the Washington Capitals:
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