IRVINE \u2014 When NHL players hit the Las Vegas Strip after a game, few get carded and even fewer get turned away for being underage.<\/p>\n
But when the Ducks visit the Golden Knights for Friday night\u2019s season opener, there will be plenty of exceptions for a team with three players under 21 and four more who are 22 at most. Renting a car could be even tougher as this year\u2019s flock has a whopping 15 players who are 25 or younger.<\/p>\n
In fact, this group is the youngest in the league<\/a>, a distinction the Ducks didn\u2019t even have three seasons ago when they lugged a hybrid AHL\/NHL roster into a woeful 2023-24 campaign<\/a>. As recently as this spring, that season seemed like a distant memory, as the Ducks not only made the playoffs but advanced to lose to the eventual Western Conference champions<\/a>, these same Golden Knights.<\/p>\n Now, with nearly every cent of their cap space invested into a roster with haves and have-nots in terms of both salary and seasoning, the Ducks will look to recalculate the trajectory of a build that overflowed with promise after a summer that was inundated with problems. They\u2019ve got more than $40 million per year sunk into their three-player nucleus, and they will need to get significant contributions from their teammates with entry-level cap hits if they want to build on last year\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n A new captain and a contract year for an aging coach<\/p>\n Mikael Granlund\u2019s jersey will be emblazoned with the captain\u2019s \u201cC\u201d<\/a> after Radko Gudas returned to the Florida Panthers this summer<\/a>. Granlund, 34, joined the Ducks last season but became a locker room favorite in short order.<\/p>\n By his own description and that of anyone who had spent 10 seconds around him, he is a quiet player who leads by example and plays a skill-based game, in contrast to the rugged Gudas. That continuum of the captaincy unfolded under Coach Joel Quenneville, whose second year behind the bench is a contract year for the 68-year-old who has four Stanley Cup championship rings. In Year 1, the Ducks\u2019 best season since 2017, he certainly stated a strong case to stay longer.<\/p>\n Granlund\u2019s prior experience as a captain was in international play, thrice captaining Finland, including at February\u2019s Olympics. Fellow Leijonat competitor Joel Armia, a winger for the Kings, lauded Granlund\u2019s leadership and said he was surprised he had not become an NHL captain sooner. Granlund will be the third-oldest player on the team behind Alex Killorn, 37, and Nick Jensen, 36. With three sons of his own, he\u2019s quite comfortable in the dad role.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a great group. Great kids. Great human beings. I love to be around them,\u201d Granlund told Ducks Stream. \u201cWe\u2019ll try to keep it that way, having that good feeling here. We\u2019re all trying t o be boys, and friends here, so that makes it more fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Free of free-agent drama<\/p>\n No one felt the offseason\u2019s sharp ascent of player salaries quite like the Ducks, whose inability to get all four of their significant pending restricted free agents under contract drastically reshaped their outlook. After signing Jackson LaCombe to a deal that raised a few eyebrows last fall but has aged very well since<\/a>, General Manager Pat Verbeek let Leo Carlsson<\/a>, Cutter Gauthier<\/a> and Pavel Mintyukov<\/a> go past July 1 without new contracts, and the results were disastrous. All three players came in millions above cap projections and forced a reckoning that created immense roster turnover.<\/p>\n In the wake of that cataclysm, Verbeek publicly promised to take a more proactive inclination toward RFAs. Not only do the Ducks at least know what they\u2019re dealing with \u2013 $47.7 million annually committed to four players beginning new contracts this year \u2013 but their management has made good on its word.<\/p>\n