Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the Anaheim Ducks.

There was a lot to like about the 2025-26 Anaheim Ducks. They not only snapped their seven-year playoff drought, they also won their first playoff series since the 2016-17 postseason and played one of the more entertaining brands of hockey in the league.

The lineup is full of young, impact talents at forward, and several of them took massive steps forward this past season.

Leo Carlsson continued to emerge as a bonafide No. 1 center and franchise cornerstone. He rocks and is everything you want in a top center.

Beckett Sennecke had 23 goals and 60 points as a rookie, putting together the type of rookie season that would normally put you at the top of the of the Calder Trophy list if there wasn’t an historically dominant 18-year-old defenseman playing elsewhere at the same time.

Cutter Gauthier had a breakout year with 41 goals and looks like he has a long career ahead of him as an elite-level finisher.

Along with them, a lot of veterans showed they can still play, including Chris Kreider following his arrival in a preseason trade from the New York Rangers, and perpetually underrated veteran Troy Terry.

All of those things together saw the Ducks go from 30th in the league in goals scored in 2024-25, all the way up into the top-half of the league. The improvements were even stronger during 5-on-5 play where they finished the season 11th in goals scored per 60 minutes and third in expected goals per 60 minutes. If anything, their offense was a little unlucky and had the potential to be even better.

That all played a huge role in them being a team worth watching. And that was with some key veterans (productive veterans) missing extended time due to injury. Mikael Granlund and Troy Terry both missed more than 20 games. Frank Vatrano missed 32 games and went from being a consistent 20-goal scorer to a five-goal scorer. Even Carlsson missed 12 games.

It was an excellent team offensively.

It could have been even better with a little better luck (both in the form of puck luck and injury luck).

But the other side of that is for as much as they scored, and for as dangerous as their offense could be, they were giving up just as much on the defensive end. If not more at times.

They finished the season 29th in overall goals against and 28th in expected goals against per 60 minutes. The only playoff team that allowed more chances than them defensively was the Boston Bruins, and they at least had elite goaltending to help make up for it.

The Ducks didn’t even have that due to a disappointing year from starting goalie Lukas Dostal.

They literally had to outscore all of their flaws, and for an extended period of time were able to do exactly that. But it was always going to be a major hurdle to overcome when it came to winning in the playoffs and going on a truly deep run.

The problem going into the offseason is the Ducks haven’t really had a chance to address … any of that?

The defense lost veterans Jacob Trouba, Radko Gudas, Olen Zellweger and trade deadline acquisition John Carlson.

The goalies remain the same.

The only actual outside addition of any significance to the roster is veteran depth forward A.J. Greer.

I am not going to crush them for the defensive departures because some of those guys were a major part of the problem, and they absolutely needed a new look with that group. But at some point you actually need to do that and bring in some outside help. So far, it hasn’t really happened.

Adding to the headache is the Ducks all of a sudden got themselves into a little bit of a salary cap crunch given the way restricted free agency played out.

General manager Pat Verbeek’s negotiating tactic of drawing out talks with his young players until the very last minute came back to bite him in the ass on more than one occasion. The Philadelphia Flyers jumped in and threw a five-year, $90 million offer sheet at Carlsson (which he signed), and forced the Ducks into a situation where they had to pay him probably $6 or $7 million more than than they were anticipating. They had to match the offer because letting a No. 1 center go for what would probably be four mid-or-late first-round picks would have been a devastating blow to the roster, as well as the entire rebuild. It would have set them back years.

While all of that was happening, there was the threat of another potential offer sheet for defenseman Pavel Mintyukov that prompted them to sign him to a five-year, $36 million extension. That was also probably a million or two more than they were anticipating given what he has actually done so far in his career.

They still have to re-sign Gauthier (who is not eligible for an offer-sheet) with their remaining $10 million in salary cap space.

He will almost certainly take up most, if not all of that.

Carlsson’s contract, while a definite overpay, is going to be fine as long as he continues on his current trajectory. I see no reason to believe he will not continue on that trajectory. The same is going to be true with Gauthier’s deal and whatever it looks like.

Mintyukov certainly has the talent and the potential to make that contract a positive value contract, but he still has a ways to go before he gets there.

All of a sudden, a team that entered the offseason with an outstanding young core, a successful season it could build off of, and a massive amount of salary cap space has seen all of that cap space evaporate with almost no outside additions to fix their obvious flaws.

It’s not great, and it certainly puts an awful lot of pressure on Verbeek both now, and in the future.

Let’s talk a little more about that, as well as everything that went right and wrong during the 2025-26 season.