Ducks have improved, but loss to playoff-bound Kings shows there’s still work to do
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The years-long blueprint general manager Pat Verbeek drew up for his young Ducks had them playing meaningful games in the final month of this season. And they have played meaningful games this month.
Only the games haven’t been all that meaningful for the Ducks.
They have meant a lot to the teams the Ducks have played, however. The Kings, for example, moved a big step closer to clinching home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs in Thursday’s 6-1 blowout of the Ducks, which gave them a four-point edge over the Edmonton Oilers in the Pacific Division standings with four games to play.
The margin of victory is a pretty good indicator of how far apart Southern California’s NHL teams are. The Kings are going to the playoffs for a fourth straight season while the Ducks will miss the postseason for a seventh straight time, the third-longest drought in the NHL. So while the buildings where the teams play are just 34 miles apart, on the ice there’s an ocean separating the Kings from the Ducks.
Matty Beniers and Brandon Montour score 54 seconds apart late in the first period to help lead the Seattle Kraken to a 2-1 win over the Kings.
It may not be that way for long, though, because this season has been one of progress for the Ducks. They’re 21 points ahead of where they were at this point a year ago and have won 35 games for the first time since 2019. With three wins in their final three games, the Ducks could finish with a winning record for the first time since 2018, the last season they made the playoffs. Two wins and they’ll break even.
And with the team’s final six games coming against teams that either have clinched postseason berths or are fighting for them, the Ducks have gotten a chance to experience a playoff-type atmosphere.
“These are the games we’ve got to get comfortable playing. And you can measure yourself,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said Thursday. “Your compete level. Your decisions with the puck. All those things that are part of a playoff environment.
“We’re trying to build on an identity. Tonight we had 11 kids born in 2000 and younger and they’re in these games. It’s a different game, it’s a different pace, it’s a different intensity. So it’s critical that they go through these type of games. It’s going to help in the long run.”
The long run has been the foundation of the Ducks’ slow and deliberate rebuilding project, one that began seven years ago. It’s a plan built around drafting and developing homegrown players and it finally may be paying off.
Mason McTavish, Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier all were taken in the first round of the NHL draft and this season each player has at least 20 goals and 23 assists. None is older than 22. Olen Zellweger, a second-round pick in 2021, and Pavel Mintyukov, the 10th overall pick in 2022, have become solid defensemen at 21. And Lukas Dostal, finishing his fourth season, has emerged as a solid goaltender at 24.
Which brings us to the next step in Verbeek’s plan: keeping that core of young Ducklings together while bringing in veterans to provide leadership and stability. It will take work this summer to do that.
Dostal and McTavish are eligible to become restricted free agents, as is 23-year-old winger Sam Colangelo and 24-year-old defenseman Drew Helleson while Gauthier, Carlsson, Mintyukov, Zellweger and center Trevor Zegras, 23, have a year left on their contracts. Now would seem to be the time to make deals with many if not all of them since Verbeek has a ton of cap space available and soon will have even more money to spend, with the cap jumping $7.5 million for next season and another $8.5 million in 2026-27.
Not everyone is showing patience in the Ducks’ plan, though.
“It’s a pretty far-back corner if that’s the corner we’re trying to turn,” said defenseman Jacob Trouba, a 12-year veteran who was acquired from the New York Rangers in December. “There’s a lot more to be had, a lot more to strive for.”
The Kings’ top line of Andrei Kuzmenko and Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe have been on a tear, but the one thing they can’t score is a final decision on a nickname.
Yet if the Ducks believe they are building toward something special, the Kings are already there. Thursday’s win, on two goals from Kevin Fiala and scores from Quinton Byfield, Anze Kopitar, Alex Laferriere and Jordan Spence, was their 14th in 18 games. They’ve averaged more than 3½ goals a game during that streak while goaltender Darcy Kuemper has gone 15 games without giving up more than two scores, one game shy of the modern-day NHL record.
All that momentum comes at a good time with their playoff opener — which almost certainly will be a rematch with the Oilers — less than 10 days away. Edmonton eliminated the Kings in the first round in each of the last three postseasons, but all those series opened in Canada. This spring the Kings likely will open at home, where they have the best record in the NHL.
“Success, that’s the most important thing. That’s all that matters,” said Fiala, who played in the Kings’ playoff losses the last two seasons. “We just have to stay on it, continue what we’re doing, believe in the system, believe in us, believe in what we’re doing and just keep on going.”
In other words, believe in the plan. The Ducks are trying to do that too.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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