Room service has settled better in the Ducks’ stomachs than home cooking so far this season and now it’ll be wheels up for four away games in six days, beginning Monday in the Big Apple.

While they sold out their first four home games for the first time since they were the defending Stanley Cup champs in 2007, they’ve posted a 1-3-0 record with no regulation wins in those affairs. But they’re undefeated on the road so far with three wins, all in regulation.

Though the Ducks entered their matchup with the Boston Bruins on Friday boasting the NHL’s second-best power play and fourth-ranked penalty kill, they dipped to a tie for seventh and a tie for 16th, respectively, after an abysmal special-teams night. They lost the special-teams battle 3-0 in the process of converting a two-goal lead into a two-goal loss.

There’s been a similar arc to all three defeats at home, as they also flubbed a two-goal lead in a 5-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers and let a 2-1 edge slip away against the underpowered Calgary Flames.

“It’s just communication with each other. As a group, we know it, and that can’t happen. We’ll get back to practice and get those things squared away,” defenseman Jackson LaCombe said.

Against Boston, Cutter Gauthier moved back to his amateur position of center and performed admirably, including factoring into one of the prettiest goals of the campaign. He stood in for Mikael Granlund, who will travel with the team and could return early in this trip.

The road has been kind to the Ducks this season and despite a dense schedule they’ll have limited travel with three dates in the New York metro area followed by a dash down I-95 South to Philadelphia.

As usual, Coach Joel Quenneville didn’t have any elaborate vision for the trip as a whole, opting to focus on each challenge along the way.

“One game at a time. Let’s get it off to a great start, get some momentum built off of the first game and go from there, don’t look past it,” he said.

That first matchup will be with the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday, where the Blueshirts are 5-0-0 thus far. That mark stood in stark contrast to last year, when their 14 wins on home ice were four fewer than any other Eastern Conference club.

A gruesome right knee injury sidelined their franchise goalie, Igor Shesterkin, for the rest of the season. Veteran backup Joonas Korpisalo has also been hurt, throwing Dylan Garand into the frying pan. He won his first two starts, but in his third game he was chased from a 7-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils, whom the Ducks will face in the third game of this journey. Garand rebounded but still earned a loss in a 1-0 overtime loss to Columbus on Saturday.

After a night in Manhattan, it’ll be onto Long Island on Tuesday for the date with the Islanders and their leaders, Bo Horvat and Matthew Schaefer.

Knee injuries have impacted them negatively as well. Top forward Mathew Barzal experienced issues with the same knee that caused him to miss 52 games of the 2024-25 campaign and defenseman Alexander Romanov tore his ACL. For Romanov, it’ll be his second straight season with a serious injury after his shoulder kept him out of all but 15 games last year.

Following Thursday’s match with Jack Hughes and company in Newark, they’ll go to what’s sure to be the most hostile environment yet in the City of Brotherly Love.

Already surly after losing nine straight games to start 2026-27, the Flyers’ faithful will channel all their negative energy into their spite toward Gauthier. Gauthier was drafted fifth overall by the Flyers but opted not to sign with them, forcing them to trade him. They received Jamie Drysdale and a second-round pick, while the Ducks got a player who led them with 41 goals last season.

More layers of intrigue were added. First, one-time franchise face Trevor Zegras was dealt to Philly in a deal that swapped star power for utilitarianism last summer. Then this summer, Flyers GM Daniel Briere cranked the thermostat on Ducks GM Pat Verbeek with a front-loaded $90 million offer sheet for Leo Carlsson, which the Ducks matched.

In Gauthier’s career, the Ducks are 0-3-1 against the Flyers, including losing both meetings in Philly by an aggregate score of 11-2.