Tristan Luneau (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
For Tristan Luneau, the opportunity has rarely been clearer.
Three years after getting his first taste of the NHL as a 19-year-old, the Anaheim Ducks’ young right-shot defenceman is heading into the most important training camp of his career. That’s because, this time, there is a legitimate opening up for grabs.
Anaheim’s blue line has undergone significant turnover with John Carlson, Jacob Trouba and Radko Gudas having left via free agency, leaving the right side of the Ducks’ defence particularly unsettled. Meanwhile, the Leo Carlsson offer sheet and Cutter Gauthier’s eventual extension have tightened Anaheim’s financial flexibility and may in fact force a trade before the start of the season.
For a team that has spent years accumulating young talent, some of those prospects are going to have to become inexpensive NHL contributors.
Luneau intends to be one of them.
“It’s a really exciting opportunity for me,” Luneau said to RG. “You can see the door is open and you want to try and carve out a role on the team. My mentality going into camp is to do everything I can to help this team moving forward and prove I can play in this league full time.”
There is a significant difference between Luneau arriving at Ducks camp now and the teenager who unexpectedly played his way onto the roster three years ago.
Back then, Luneau wasn’t necessarily arriving with expectations of sticking around. A second-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, his objective was considerably simpler.
“When I was 19, I don’t know what to expect, you just want to get noticed,” Luneau said. “I believed that I was going to camp to leave a good impression, but then camp really went well and I connected with the other players.”
It went well enough that Anaheim kept him.
Luneau appeared in seven games for the Ducks during the 2023-24 season, giving him an unusually early glimpse of what NHL hockey demanded of a young defenceman. He also spent time in the AHL before eventually being returned to the QMJHL.
The NHL stint was brief, but the impression it left wasn’t.
“My first NHL games were crazy,” Luneau said. “Just standing on the ice and being like: ‘these are the players I get to play with.’ The important moments with players I grew up with in the organization like Cutter Gauthier, Nathan Gaucher, Pavel Mintyukov and more. We’ve spent so much time together over the years.”
There was another benefit to getting there so quickly.
Luneau no longer has to imagine what a successful NHL training camp or NHL game feels like. He knows the pace, he knows the pressure, and he knows how dramatically different playing against NHL competition can feel compared with watching it.
“You kind of know what to expect in terms of training camp,” Luneau said. “It’s good to know what situation you’re about to land in and also how the game is played at that level. Even if you watch the games, it’s a whole other thing to play it. But that experience early on helped to be ready for this.”
Learning How To Become An NHL Defenceman
If Luneau’s first NHL opportunity showed him where he wanted to go, the past two seasons in San Diego have been about figuring out how to stay there.
For starters, Luneau’s offensive ability has never been particularly difficult to identify.
He produced nine goals and 52 points in 59 games as an AHL rookie with the Gulls in 2024-25, establishing himself as one of San Diego’s most productive players from the blue line. He followed that with 10 goals and 41 points in 70 games last season.
“The first year in the AHL we were focused on offense and I was put in a role to perform offensively,” Luneau said. “I felt I put up good numbers and we had good chemistry that season so it felt really natural.”
But piling up points in the AHL and becoming a full-time NHL defenceman aren’t necessarily the same assignment.
So after proving he could produce, Luneau began concentrating on the other areas of his game.
“The following year in San Diego, it was easier to score, so I challenged myself to be more well-rounded defensively,” Luneau said.
“For me to stick in the NHL, I need to have that consistency.”
That word, consistency, comes up repeatedly when Luneau talks about his development.
The AHL provided an environment in which mistakes had consequences and expectations followed production. Rather than simply learning how to create offence against professional players, Luneau had to learn how to deliver night after night.
“The AHL helped me control my consistency and being able to deal with the pressure to perform,” Luneau said. “And confidence is always about the process.”
That process required adjustment from the junior player who could impose his skill on games to a professional defenceman who had to find ways to influence them without sacrificing reliability.
“I went to San Diego to learn to adapt my game to the pro level,” Luneau added. “I feel confident I’ve found that consistency and that I can make an impact at both ends of the ice.”
Now comes the test of whether those lessons translate to Anaheim.
Youth Movement Continues In the OC
With several veterans now gone, Anaheim will have jobs to distribute and minutes to replace. Luneau’s right-handed shot only makes his candidacy more intriguing.
He won’t be entering an unfamiliar dressing room, either.
The Ducks’ rebuild has produced a group of young players who have spent years developing alongside one another. Some have already established themselves in Anaheim. Others, like Luneau, are trying to make the next step.
“Those are guys I know that I have taken some time to learn from,” Luneau said. “I spent a lot of time with Pavel Mintyukov in my rookie year. LaCombe is incredible. So it’s really going to help having those guys there.”
The familiarity extends deeper into the organization.
Luneau has shared the development process with many of Anaheim’s prospects, from NHL games and training camps to years spent together lower in the system. Now several of them could arrive at camp fighting for the same thing.
“It’s great for us, we’ve spent a lot of time together,” Luneau said. “And now we can support each other with so many spots available in camp.”
One of those relationships is with now-former Ducks and current Montreal Canadiens prospect Sasha Pastujov, whom Luneau knows particularly well after their time together in the organization.
“Pastujov’s such a great player,” Luneau said. “He plays with so much talent, and he makes his plays look so easy. He’s an incredible person and a fantastic playmaker on the ice. We spent a lot of time together; we were even roommates for a season. He’s been great for me.”
Although the loss of Pastujov in a summer trade with Montreal may sting a little, Luneau feels the Ducks are well positioned.
For years, the conversation surrounding the Ducks centered on who was coming next. Draft picks became prospects, prospects moved into professional hockey and the organization waited for its young core to mature.
Outside of a few exceptions like Leo Carlson, Cutter Gauthier and Jackson LaCombe, those players are arriving together.
“Anaheim is a really good destination for hockey right now, and it feels like we’re building toward something fun,” Luneau said.
A Roster Spot And Something More
Another layer to Luneau’s upcoming season isn’t simply about making the Ducks.
It is also a contract year for Luneau, meaning the next several months could go a long way toward determining where Luneau fits into Anaheim’s plans and how the organization views him going forward.
For a young player, those realities can pull in different directions. One is the immediate goal of winning an NHL job; the other is the longer-term question of establishing value and staying power.
Luneau understands the distinction.
“Those are two very different things,” he said. “You want to push to crack the roster, and you want to think of the future and what your value is as a player going into your contract year. It’s about leaving a strong impression and making you’ve shown what you can bring to the organization and where your game is going.”
The opportunity, then, is about more than an empty spot on a depth chart.
Luneau has already shown he can produce in the AHL. He has already experienced NHL hockey. He has spent two full seasons learning to become a more complete professional defenceman, not just an offensively gifted one.
Now the circumstances in Anaheim have aligned.
There are openings on defence, there is limited cap flexibility, and the second wave of a young core is beginning to graduate together.
Three years ago, Luneau came to training camp hoping to leave an impression and unexpectedly found himself in the NHL.
This time, it will be much less of a surprise if he stays.
Ducks’ Cup and Western Conference Odds
The Anaheim Ducks remain an intriguing long shot entering 2026-27. Stake lists Anaheim at 31.00 to win the Stanley Cup and 17.00 to capture the Western Conference, putting them well behind established contenders such as Colorado, Edmonton and Vegas in both markets.