MONTREAL — To the likely surprise of anyone who projected their fate this season, the Anaheim Ducks are now a part of one of the most intriguing questions in the NHL.
Can the Ducks win the Pacific Division?
“Oh yeah!” Anaheim center Ryan Poehling said with a wide smile. “For sure. Yeah.”
Goalie Lukáš Dostál took a stance more befitting his measured nature.
“I don’t know what the standings are right now, but obviously we do our best,” Dostál said this week. “But we obviously focus for every single game because our main goal is to get to the playoffs. That will be kind of a cherry on top.”
It’s there for the Ducks to grab. With a 4-3 victory over Montreal on Sunday — young star Leo Carlsson had two goals and one assist — the Ducks moved back into first place in the division, one point ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights. It’s been jumbled in the Pacific for a while and nothing is certain, because the Ducks are only six points ahead of the fourth-place Seattle Kraken.
The good news? The website Tankathon has Anaheim with the NHL’s second-easiest strength of schedule remaining. On the other hand, the Golden Knights and the Edmonton Oilers — the Ducks’ two most-likely competitors for the division title — have a stronger history when it comes to important late-season games.
Still, who guessed the Ducks would be in this position? At the start of the season, BetMGM had Anaheim at +3500 odds (or a comparable 35-to-1) to win the Pacific, lagging far behind Edmonton, Vegas, Los Angeles and Vancouver. At one point last week, the Ducks became the betting favorites at -110.
Perhaps team owner Henry Samueli had visions of this. A playoff spot, at least, was his stated mission when the team introduced Joel Quenneville as its new coach in May.
“That is the pressure we’re putting on both (GM) Pat (Verbeek) and Joel,” he said. “They know that the fans and the ownership expect to make the playoffs this (next) season. There’s a lot of pressure to put on a coach and a GM. But you got to do it.”
But even the most optimistic of Ducks loyalists — inside and outside the organization — couldn’t have foreseen a division title being in play, not after seven consecutive seasons without making the playoffs. Just three years ago, the Ducks were in the NHL basement. The franchise is starting to reap the benefits of its rebuilding plan under Verbeek.
“I’ve been here through a lot of these seasons,” said Troy Terry, the longest-tenured player on the roster (2018). “It’s definitely an exciting time to be a Duck.”
To paraphrase the great David Byrne, you may ask yourself, “Well, how did they get here?” Here are five major reasons.
All the comebacks
When the Ducks and Montreal Canadiens met in Anaheim on March 6, the teams went back and forth, trading comebacks in the Ducks’ thrilling 6-5 shootout win. That felt right, since those teams are tied at the top of the league when it comes to comeback victories, with 21 each.
The Ducks have had nine multi-goal comebacks this season to tie a club record set in 2013-14 — a year when they had franchise records of 54 victories and 116 points. Five of their game-winning goals have come in the final five minutes of regulation. They’ve also scored seven game-tying goals that late in games.
They’ve won a game that they tied with 0.1 seconds on the clock in regulation and, in three other games, they erased a deficit three different times. In one of those, they scored five times against Olympic gold medal-winning goalie Connor Hellebuyck and the Winnipeg Jets after facing a 2-0 deficit late into the second period.
As thrilling as those victories have been, the Ducks too often spot the opposition leads. They’ve allowed the first goal in 40 of their 67 games. Often, they’ve allowed the first two. The ability to come back is a great trait, but it becomes problematic when it turns into reliance. That became apparent recently, with a home loss to St. Louis before defeats to Toronto and Ottawa on their just-completed road trip.
Cutter Gauthier leads the Ducks with 34 goals and 59 points. (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Playing to their strengths
The Ducks have amassed high-upside young players and have steadily built a roster geared toward speed and skill. And in Quenneville’s first season, the Ducks have become one of the strongest teams in the league off the rush.
Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier have thrived in that atmosphere, with Carlsson becoming a point-per-game player in his third season and Gauthier leveling up as a 34-goal scorer — and the team’s leading point-producer in his second season. Anaheim’s blue line has a blend of young puck-movers and veterans with big point shots, and the defensemen have totaled 37 goals (41 if you include Ian Moore, who plays both defense and forward).
Jackson LaCombe best exemplifies that mobility on the back end, and his eight goals and 47 points show his growth as a No. 1 defenseman. Up front, Beckett Sennecke emerged as a Calder Trophy contender because Quenneville gave him opportunity with a top-six role right away and allowed him to play through his mistakes. At 20 years old, Sennecke is among the rookie scoring leaders with 20 goals and 51 points.
Quenneville has leaned into playing high-event hockey and the Ducks have responded. They’re gone from 21st in shots per game (27.7) last season to third (30.2) this season, and improved their offense from 30th (2.65 goals per game) to 13th (3.21). That helps balance out the fact that the Ducks are third-worst in the league in goals against per game.
The overtime and shootout prowess
The Ducks’ 37-27-3 record is boosted by remarkable results beyond regulation. The amount of extra hockey being played has been one of the defining elements of this NHL season, and Anaheim has gone 7-3 during five-on-five overtime with an 8-0 record in shootouts.
Seven different players — Carlsson, Gauthier, Sennecke, Olen Zellweger, Jacob Trouba, Mikael Granlund, Chris Kreider — have overtime goals. Speed and skill play into that with the extra ice. And the combination of Mason McTavish’s shootout go-to — a nearly unstoppable, snail’s pace jam shot through a goalie’s five-hole — and Dostál’s prowess in stopping shooters one-on-one gives Anaheim an advantage.
That won’t matter in the postseason, but has helped the Ducks gain extra points while others in the division have struggled when the games go past 60 minutes. All the victories in extra time have helped overcome the fact that Anaheim’s 22 regulation wins are tied for 10th in the Western Conference and the fewest among the 16 teams currently in playoff position.
Clutch goaltending
Speaking of shootouts, Dostál has been remarkably good in them. The 25-year-old has a .765 shootout save percentage. It’s also one reason why he is headed for his first 30-win season in his first year as Anaheim’s undisputed No. 1 goalie, following last summer’s trade of longtime starter John Gibson to the Detroit Red Wings.
Dostál’s overall numbers are impressive. His 27 victories rank fourth among NHL netminders and his goals-against average is his best in the three full seasons he’s been up with Anaheim. His save percentage is down, but that’s also the case league-wide.
However, Dostál’s goals save above expected, per MoneyPuck, is -0.8, compared to 14.3 last season. There has been a significant drop in his even-strength save percentage since last season, from .913 to .899. Dig further, and Dostál has improved in facing high-danger attempts, going upward to .785 from .771. His best saves have often come at timely junctures, and he seems to have a habit of shutting down teams after allowing early goals.
After starting the season with the AHL’s San Diego Gulls, backup Ville Husso has stepped in and done a credible job with a 7-7-1/3.01/.898, after Petr Mrazek’s early struggles and his uneven play before hip surgery in February ended his year. Husso is 3-0 in shootouts and has had a couple sparkling performances, including a 44-save effort to beat Pittsburgh and a recent 42-save showing in a 5-1 win over the New York Islanders.
The veterans still have game
Perhaps it wasn’t quite “Escape from New York” for Kreider and Trouba, but their exodus from the Rangers to the Ducks has breathed new life into their lengthy careers.
Kreider, 34, is just one goal short of the 22 he scored last season. Even though he has dealt with multiple injuries, he could reach 50 points with a strong finish. He’s also been a good example for Gauthier and Sennecke, showing both young forwards the value of strong play at the offensive net front. Trouba, 32, hasn’t been perfect defensively but he’s given the Ducks incredibly unexpected offensive value with one of his best point-producing seasons.
Until a recurring upper-body injury took him out of the lineup on two occasions, Terry was racking up assists and producing at a point per game. Injuries have also thrown Mikael Granlund off track at times, but Poehling’s strong two-way play in his place was rewarded when Poehling signed a four-year contract extension this month.
The season-long struggles of forwards Frank Vatrano and the since-traded Ryan Strome can’t be ignored, but Anaheim has gotten contributions from role players such as Ross Johnston, Jansen Harkins and waiver-wire pickup Jeffrey Viel. Viel, in particular, has been quite the surprise, as his tenacious play has kept him in the lineup.