Ducks youth movement leads to long-awaited return to Stanley Cup Playoffs

The Anaheim Ducks scratched a seven-season itch.

The Ducks qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2017-18, doing so with a young, talented roster that has been augmented with key veteran pieces.

That combination has resulted in a perfect blend this season, one that has been tied together by first-year coach Joel Quenneville, leading up to their postseason quest, which begins in Game 1 of the best-of-7 Western Conference First Round against the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on Monday (10 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, KCOP-13, ESPN2, Victory+).

“They’re a high-octane team. They can score goals,” said forward Ryan Strome, who played four seasons in Anaheim before being traded to the Calgary Flames on March 6. “You look at their lineup and the number of the points their guys have, it’s pretty impressive. They have good goaltending, and it’s just a steady roster. The way the roster is built, top to bottom, there’s not many holes and there’s a lot of guys with a lot of depth.”

That roster has been a long time coming, though.

After Anaheim was swept by the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference First Round in 2018, the roster stayed for the most part intact. At the time, the team was led by forwards Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Ryan Kesler, Andrew Cogliano, Jakob Silfverberg and Adam Henrique, as well as defensemen Hampus Lindholm, Brandon Montour, Josh Manson and Cam Fowler.

However, the Ducks went on to miss the playoffs in 2018-19 (35-37-10, 80 points), and along with coach Randy Carlyle, who was fired on Feb. 10, 2019, a slow roster reconstruction began.

“We went through some tough times the last few years, and to see them pull out of it is good,” Strome said. “That’s what you hope to see in a rebuild.”

That rebuild was led largely through the NHL Draft, where many of the Ducks' current young leaders were acquired, including forwards Leo Carlsson (No. 2 in 2023), Beckett Sennecke (No. 3 in 2024) and Mason McTavish (No. 3 in 2021), defensemen Jackson LaCombe (No. 39 in 2019), Ian Moore (No. 67 in 2020), Olen Zellweger (No. 34 in 2021) and Pavel Mintyukov (No. 10 in 2022), and goaltender Lukas Dostal (No. 85 in 2018). Forward Troy Terry, who played 32 games for the Ducks during the 2018-19 season, was a fifth-round pick (No. 148) in the 2015 NHL Draft.

“Obviously, the last few years were tough. We weren’t winning very many games, but you can see the progress we made over those years and how bad everyone wanted to turn it around,” LaCombe said. “You can see it now, and it’s a testament to how hard everybody worked over the summer, and we were ready to play this year. I think we had the confidence that we were going to make the playoffs.”

The Ducks have been led offensively this season by Carlsson (67 points; 29 goals, 38 assists) and forward Cutter Gauthier (team-leading 69 points; 41 goals, 28 assists), who was the No. 5 pick by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2022 NHL Draft and was acquired in a trade for defenseman Jamie Drysdale and a second-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft on Jan. 8, 2024.

Sennecke, a 20-year-old rookie, is third on the team with 60 points (23 goals, 37 assists), LaCombe is fourth with 58
(10 goals, 48 assists) and Terry is fifth with 57 (19 goals, 38 assists).

Dostal is 30-20-4 with a 3.10 goals-against average and .888 save percentage for Anaheim (43-33-6), which finished third in the Pacific Division, one point behind the second-place Oilers.

“We’ve formed a lot of great relationships and bonds that make us so close,” LaCombe said. “Just to be able to do it together and just to be in the (playoffs) is exciting for us, and we couldn’t be happier where we are.”

It hasn’t just been the youth moment in Anaheim that has contributed to its success. General manager Pat Verbeek has been able to surround his young talent with experienced veterans to help with the heavy lifting.

Forward Chris Kreider, 34, was acquired in a trade with the New York Rangers on June 12, 2025. That deal came six months after the Ducks acquired defenseman Jacob Trouba, 32, in a trade with the Rangers on Dec. 6, 2024.

But Verbeek has also been active during free agency, bringing in over the past few seasons key players such as forwards Mikael Granlund, 34, and Alex Killorn, 36, and defenseman and captain Radko Gudas, 35.

“I think we need them in a lot of ways, and one thing they do is they bring a real presence of playing the game the right way,” Quenneville said of the veterans. “They’re real professional guys with real good instincts and are competitive, and I think that composure pays off in important moments.

“It’s nice having their presence and leadership around.”

It's also been nice to have around defenseman John Carlson, who was acquired in a blockbuster trade with the Washington Capitals on March 5 for a conditional first-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft and a third-round pick in the 2027 NHL Draft.

It was a move that clearly demonstrated that Anaheim was living in the present and done dealing for the future. Carlson, 36, is in the final season of an eight-year, $64 million contract he signed with Washington on June 24, 2018, and can become an unrestricted free agent after the season.

“I think it’s been great, they’ve been very welcoming. Obviously, the on-ice stuff is fun to watch and fun to be a part of,” Carlson said. “There’s been a lot of improvement here, and that’s probably just as exciting, to see how exciting they are with what we can do and how much better we can play. I’m thrilled to be here and thrilled to be in a great spot with a great team.”

A team that hopes it has put together the pieces to be a consistent Stanley Cup contender.

“If you look at all the other teams that have won the Cup, they have their three or four young guys that have played together for a long time and built their games and their relationships with that team,” Gauthier said. “That’s what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to accomplish. We have a great brotherhood here and a lot of guys that are all striving for the same goal every day. We’re a really competitive group and that makes it fun coming the rink every day.”