The Ducks have ten games left on their schedule for 2023-24 and are most likely locked into 30th in the NHL league standings and the third-best draft lottery odds. Why the last stretch of the season is important despite how seemingly meaningless it in the standings.
The Ducks have ten games left on their schedule for 2023-24 and are most likely locked into 30th in the NHL league standings and the third-best draft lottery odds. Why the last stretch of the season is important despite how seemingly meaningless it in the standings.
The Ducks are ten games away from the end of their 2023-24 season. As of Tuesday night, the team has a 24-44-4 record and sits in 30th place in the NHL league standings.
This season has not gone to plan for the Anaheim Ducks. Significant injuries to key pieces (both present and future pieces) of the roster have played a major role in derailing a season in which process and development were meant to nudge the team toward a step forward in the standings.
Another aspect that may be a culprit is growing pains with a new coach, culture, and system introduced during the 2023 offseason. Greg Cronin was hired as head coach of the Ducks in June and with him, he brought a standard and expectation for his players on and off the ice.
On the ice, the system demands heavy pressure in every zone and astute attention to detail. One player missing an assignment can have a snowball effect, leading to a breakdown, and a puck in the back of the Anaheim net.
Accountability and work ethic are terms often used by everyone in the organization from the front office to the coaches to the players.
True change is hard, it doesn’t happen overnight, and some potholes are bound to be hit.
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Odds would say the Ducks are locked into 30th place in the NHL standings. They sit five points above the Chicago Blackhawks at 31st and six points below the Columbus Blue Jackets at 29th. With how the NHL standings points system works, five or six points is a lot of ground to make up in the last ten games of a season. With that spot in the standings comes the third-best odds (11.5%) at winning the NHL Draft Lottery and the opportunity to select first overall in this June’s NHL Entry Draft.
Though the final games of the season may seem meaningless in the standings, the team views it as an opportunity to continue building that culture, win as many games as possible, and begin training camp with something to build off.
“The last 15 games last year, we just wasted them and we didn’t get anything out of them,” said forward Ryan Strome after practice Saturday. “This year we’re going to challenge ourselves going forward because we have to put some building blocks down for next year and build some momentum toward the summer and next season.”
The Ducks have most of their young core pieces in place for their future contending window. When healthy, their roster deploys four former top-10 draft picks (Trevor Zegras, Mason McTavish, Pavel Mintyukov, and Leo Carlsson), a two-time WHL Defenseman/one-time CHL Defenseman of the Year (Olen Zellweger), a Hobey Baker Award nominee (Jackson LaCombe), and an AHL All-Star goaltender (Lukas Dostal) who was October’s NHL rookie of the month. All those players are 23 years old or younger.
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Cutter Gauthier will likely be a Hobey Baker finalist and will make his debut near the end of the 2023-24 season, joining that long, impressive list of young impact players.
“The amount of talent from the young guys is really something I’ve never seen,” Strome went on to say of the optimism for the future. “It’s going to be more organic. You can see the next wave of guys that are huge parts of the team already. Our job (as veterans) is to provide stability around it and push the message forward.”
“(Accountability) has been a big point for us all year,” rookie defenseman Jackson LaCombe said. “As a young guy, you do what you can to contribute wherever (the coaches) need you and be prepared for every situation. All the guys have been great with us all year and helped us so much.”
The infrastructure is in place within the Ducks organization. The players now know what is expected of them moving forward. By training camp for the 2024-25 season, terms like “growing pains” and “culture shock” will be in the past. Another (likely) top-5 pick will be added to an already impressive pool of young talent. The focus for the final ten games of this season will be to keep pushing, growing, and demanding physical and mental effort despite what’s on a scoreboard or in the standings.
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