{"id":7304,"date":"2025-07-13T18:56:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T18:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/7304\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T18:56:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T18:56:03","slug":"tristan-luneau-poised-to-make-big-impact-for-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/7304\/","title":{"rendered":"Tristan Luneau Poised To Make Big Impact For Ducks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Anaheim Ducks have quietly built an impressive stockpile of talented, young defenders. Players like Jackson LaCombe<\/a>, Olen Zellweger<\/a>, and Pavel Mintyukov<\/a> are beginning to prove as much on the left-hand side, but Anaheim is still searching for that same kind of breakout on the right-side. After a fantastic rookie season in the minor leagues, Tristan Luneau<\/a> who seems best positioned to bring exactly that jolt as soon as next season.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a steep learning curve for young defenders transitioning to the pro flight \u2013 especially for slight-framed, puck-movers who don\u2019t engage physically like Luneau. He showed signs of those struggles in the seven NHL games, and six AHL games, he played through in the 2023-24 season. While Luneau\u2019s three points in the NHL was an impressive jump to production, he struggled to clear out the front of the net or stop opponents from entering the defensive end. Luneau was set to mitigate those early-career learning pains with a trip to the 2024 World Junior Championship \u2013 where he surely would\u2019ve dominated his younger peers \u2013 before an illness and eventual knee infection effectively ended his season before the tournament even began.<\/p>\n

With that, Luneau\u2019s first year of pro hockey \u2013 and his first chance to represent Team Canada \u2013 came to an abrupt close. It left the Victoriaville-native in a confusing spot. His nifty puck-handling and blue-line playmaking translated seamlessly to the top flight, but he showed through multiple areas of needed growth. With a long-term absence to boot, Anaheim opted for the safe approach for Luneau\u2019s return in the 2024-25 season \u2013 defaulting him to the minor-leagues for the entire season after a brief, six-game stint in the NHL in October.<\/p>\n

A year removed, that decision has paid dividends. Luneau finished the year with 52 points in 59 games. That scoring pace \u2013 0.88 points-per-game \u2013 is the third-highest a U21 defender has managed in the AHL since 2000, and interestingly the highest from a defender outside of the Los Angeles Kings pipeline (Brandt Clarke<\/a>, 0.92 in 2023-24; Jordan Spence<\/a>, 0.91 in 2021-22). On top of reaching a tremendous scoring height, Luneau also added a heap of confidence in the gritty areas of the ice. He was diving into puck battles and scrums in the slot with the prowess his 6-foot-1, 195-pound frame should provide. The result was not only an increased ability to win pucks in the corners, and hold his ground in the slot \u2013 but truly more opportunities for Luneau to win possession and command movement up the ice.<\/p>\n

Luneau filled the same role of end-to-end commander that he became known for during his days in the QMJHL, and worked his way onto the AHL\u2019s end-of-season All-Rookie team as a result. He was once an incredibly high-regarded prospect, earning first-round acclaim through points of his juniors career. Anaheim eventually landed Luneau in the middle of the 2022 second-round, and early returns seem to suggest a day-two steal. Luneau showed his ability to score at a top level through his first seven games in the NHL two seasons ago. Now \u2013 after vindicating that ability with a dominant year in the minors \u2013 he\u2019s added the additional oomph needed to stretch his offense across a full season.<\/p>\n

With a season-ending injury now well in the rearview mirror, Luneau seems poised to jump quickly back into the NHL, where his downhill-drive could pair perfectly with the all-three-zones ability of LaCombe or Mintyukov. He\u2019ll be a favorite to make the Ducks roster directly out of training camp, and could soon be yet another young player to find his way to success on the Anaheim blue-line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Anaheim Ducks have quietly built an impressive stockpile of talented, young defenders. Players like Jackson LaCombe, Olen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[391,4830,385,4697,5627,99,7643],"class_list":{"0":"post-7304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ahl","9":"tag-anaheim-ducks","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-players","12":"tag-pro-hockey-rumors-originals","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tristan-luneau"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}