The Anaheim Ducks began a season-high five-game road trip on Sunday with a matchup against a plucky Chicago Blackhawks team. The Ducks hit the road coming off a 4-1 defeat at the hands of a cup-hopeful Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday.

After starting their season winless in their first three games (0-2-1), the Hawks had points in their last three games (2-0-1) heading into Sunday.

This was Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville’s first game in Chicago since the Jenner & Block reports emerged concerning the 2010 Blackhawks, where Quenneville had served as head coach at the time.

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Both the Ducks and Hawks went with 11-7 lineups. The Hawks were without the services of captain Nick Foligno, while Sam Lafferty and Jason Dickinson were out with injuries.

The Ducks began their trip without Ryan Strome, who remains on IR with an upper-body injury. Ross Johnston and Nikita Nesterenko served as healthy scratches, while Ian Moore got his first NHL minutes of the season as the Ducks' 12th forward/7th defenseman.

Lukas Dostal got the start in net for the Ducks for the fourth time in five games to open the 2025-26 season. He saved 28 of 30 shots in this game.

Dostal was opposed by Spencer Knight in the Hawks' crease, who was spectacular, stopping 38 of 39 shots.

Here are my notes from this game:

As the shot total would indicate, the Ducks controlled the game for sizable stretches. From a neutral standpoint and for those who enjoy both fast, up-and-down hockey built on quick, connected transition plays as well as terrific defense and goaltending, this hockey game was a delight.

Defensive Zone Coverage-As was the case for the vast majority of the Ducks’ game against the Hurricanes, the Ducks seemed to have cleaned up a lot of their defensive zone coverage issues that plagued them in their first three games of the season.

Reads and secondary pressure were more refined, and they were winning the net front stick battles that had cost them three goals in last Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Against the cycle, shots were kept to the perimeter and the point, while second-chance opportunities were either nonexistent thanks to Dostal’s rebound control or snuffed out by the Ducks’ defenders in the slot.

Power Play-After generating several quality chances against the Penguins last week, the Ducks' power play struggled mightily to simply set up their umbrella against the Hurricanes. This performance was somewhere in the middle for the Ducks, who were able to get six shots on Knight on five power play opportunities.

Leo Carlsson is the Ducks' current and future driver of the Anaheim offense, both at 5v5 and with man-advantages. The power play needs to run through him, but to accomplish that, he needs to move more throughout the structure. He’s too stagnant away from the puck and could stand to find soft ice through seams more efficiently. With the puck on his stick, he continuously attacks downhill, which is his assignment, but when he’s in small areas with time and space, he could look to pop up the wall a bit more to open more passing and shooting lanes.

Drew Helleson and Ian Moore-Both Helleson and Moore, in vastly different ways, put on a clinic of cerebral, technically proficient defense against the rush as well as in coverage. Moore, as per his play style, was more active and willing to jump into plays offensively from the backend. He cleverly worked the blueline with the puck on his stick, creating some quality looks from the point.

Both players, as well as the d-corps as a whole, showed a new level of poise when retrieving pucks and breaking them out of their zone from below the goal line. They consistently made proper quick reads, determining when to skate pucks from behind the net, make short outlets to curling centers with speed, or resort to high flips or chips off the glass.

Beckett Sennecke and Cutter Gauthier-With Mason McTavish between them, playing tenacious and sharp 200-foot hockey, Sennecke and Gauthier found pucks on their sticks a lot in the small areas of the ice. On one side of the coin, Gauthier has vastly improved in this area from year one to year two in his career. He’s manipulating on-puck defenders with quick hands and extending plays, protecting pucks using his feet and frame alike.

It’s obvious this will become a strength of Sennecke’s game at some point in his career, as he reads pressure well. His hiccups occur with his cutback attempts. It’s encouraging to see him evade so cleverly and fearlessly, but he needs to refine his edge work in these instances, as with the slightest bit of contact, he’s knocked off balance, often leading to a battle or change of possession. These are challenges that come with being an NHL rookie, but it’s simply the next progression in his overall game.

The Ducks will next head to Tennessee to take on the Nashville Predators on Tuesday evening.

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