Ducks ‘in a good spot’ to compete for a playoff spot next season

IRVINE — For the Ducks, it was another season of pain, both literal and figurative, as an injury-marred campaign crashed short of the postseason landing strip yet again.

But it was also a period of growth, both personal and collective.

Though they finished just a tick better than last year’s NHL-worst total of 58 points, new leadership and a youth movement on the roster set a course toward snapping a string of six consecutive non-playoff seasons.

“You could throw wins and everything out the window, I think, from the eye test, our team was much more competitive. Our work ethic and our structure were much higher,” forward Ryan Strome said. “Those are foundational things that are non-negotiable. Now that we’ve learned some of those things, hopefully we can take that next step.”

With a stockpile of salary cap space, nearly $35 million per most projections, General Manager Pat Verbeek should be able to equip Coach Greg Cronin with a more formidable group next year, which will be his second as head coach.

“We’re in a good spot, and I want to start to make a strong push to where we’re competing and we’re in the conversation of making the playoffs next year,” Verbeek said.

The Ducks finished seventh in man games lost this season per NHL InjuryViz, though they didn’t have players out for the entire season like most of the other top finishers did, and few teams could rival the severity of their injuries. They lost at least 200 games from first-round draft picks. Lottery talents Trevor Zegras, Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish and Pavel Mintyukov all sustained multiple injuries, as did marquee free-agent signing Alex Killorn.

Fortunately, no players, at this time, will require offseason surgery, and defenseman Tristan Luneau has been cleared to play after being out of competition since December due to an infection. Toward the end of the year, fans got a glimpse of the future with a healthy Zegras, a resurgent Carlsson and even a game from the Ducks’ Calder Trophy contender for next season, Cutter Gauthier. That cadre of young scorers helped defeat the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights in Game 82.

“I thought that was one of Leo’s best games of the year. You can see how much talent he has and what his ceiling could be, who knows how good he could be in this league? There’s so much promise with him,” Killorn, who won two Cup titles in Tampa Bay, said.

Killorn, who skated on a line with the two players whose combined age didn’t yet total 40, said he was impressed with Gauthier’s transition from the NCAA title game to a clash with the Cup champs, and Verbeek described the connection between Carlsson and Gauthier as “instant chemistry.”

Yet overall in 2023-24, the Ducks were defined more by ignominy than excellence. Despite palpable improvements in overall defensive play, momentary lapses were still a major issue and an even more persistent hindrance was penalties. They led the league in minor penalties and bench minor penalties; finished fourth in major penalties and second in overall penalty minutes; and had the worst penalty differential of the 32 franchises.

Cronin did demote, bench or otherwise reduce the deployment of multiple players for defensive snafus, turnovers and penalties, but in hindsight he said he should have considered doing it more frequently.

“If I had done some things differently this year, maybe after the first blunt message, I would have just sat guys,” Cronin said. “I didn’t do that, probably, enough.”

“Clearly what we did this year wasn’t working; we kept taking (penalties). We probably should have sat some [more] guys,” he added.

The Ducks also earned the undesirable distinction of having lost the most one-goal games in regulation of any club this season (12).

“I don’t think we were ever that far off,” winger Troy Terry said. “Every game it felt like there was one thing we did to sabotage ourselves.”

The longest-tenured Duck, defenseman Cam Fowler, performed an onerous task as the team’s ice-time leader, one that might have felt thankless over the course of so many near misses (they also placed second in two-goal losses and let five more squeakers slip in overtime). But Fowler said that the close losses should have served to reinforce the importance of constancy and focus for a group composed mostly of players who weren’t yet old enough to rent a car during road trips.

“Anybody that has watched this team or has been around this team knows that the optimism for the future is sky high, but it’s up to us, as players, to put that into action,” Fowler said. “This year was a difficult year but it was an important year for us all to learn the steps that we need to take as a group to get better next year.”