Despite clinching a playoff spot, the Ducks faltered against a depleted Wild squad. Missed chances and defensive lapses cost them a crucial win.
For their final two games of the 2025-26 season, the Anaheim Ducks hit the road, first to face the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday, their penultimate regular season game.
While idle, the Ducks secured a playoff spot on Monday with a San Jose Sharks win over the Nashville Predators. Despite clinching their first playoff appearance in eight years, the Ducks are backing into the playoffs with all their might, as, entering Tuesday, they had only won one of their previous eight games.
The Minnesota Wild, with their playoff position and opponent locked in, rested most of their key roster contributors, including Jared Spurgeon, Kirill Kaprizov, Ryan Hartman, Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber, Mats Zuccarello, and Marcus Foligno. This was a significant opportunity for the Ducks to earn two points and improve their chances for a playoff matchup.
The Ducks were without captain Radko Gudas (undisclosed) and forward Chris Kreider (illness). Olen Zellweger served as the Ducks’ healthy scratch in this game. Here’s how the Ducks lined up to start:
Viel-Carlsson-Terry
Killorn-Granlund-Sennecke
McTavish-Poehling-Gauthier
Vatrano-Washe-Moore
LaCombe-Trouba
Mintyukov-Carlson
Hinds-Helleson
Lukas Dostal got the start in this game and saved 17 of 20 shots. For Minnesota, Jesper Wallstedt got the start in net and stopped 35 of 37.
Game Notes
This game could fall in both the “frustrating” and “encouraging” categories for the Ducks at this point in the season. The encouraging angle would be to evaluate the game flow and underlying numbers, dictating that they properly controlled play for the majority of the 60 minutes and generated numerous quality chances. They simply got “goalied” by Wallstedt.
The frustrating angle would be to view this as yet another missed opportunity to potentially earn themselves a more favorable first-round opponent against a team resting their star players and enter their playoff run on a high note. They had difficulty finishing on critical chances and made elementary positional mistakes that led to all three Minnesota goals.
Mason McTavish: Firmly in the “encouraging” category was McTavish’s performance in this game. As a winger next to Ryan Poehling and Cutter Gauthier in the first two periods, and next to Leo Carlsson and Troy Terry in the third, McTavish’s puck-transporting and defensive responsibilities (two areas of trouble for him to this point in his career) were mitigated, allowing him to better utilize the strengths of his game.
He was able to find soft ice off the puck, whether that be on the rush or cycle, to get clean looks at the net, disrupt on forechecks, create plays from along the walls, and force turnovers high in the defensive zone at the point to send his line the other way for a rush attack.
He was at his best on the left flank of his power play unit, with Jackson LaCombe at the top of the umbrella and Gauthier on the right flank. He was patient and creative, finding and feeding Gauthier with seam passes seemingly at will. He even incorporated a clever bank-pass play off the end wall to get the puck to the Ducks’ leading goal scorer.
If McTavish can build on this performance heading into the playoffs and the 2026-27 season, the Ducks can maybe avoid catastrophe with their young, important forward who had a disappointing season.
Rush Defense: A sore area for the Ducks for the duration of their rebuild, the rush defense in this game proved encouraging as well. F3s backchecked smartly through the middle and picked up the required open attacker, allowing the weak-side defenseman to pressure the opposing forward in the middle lane.
However, one slip-up presented itself in this area on Minnesota’s game-winning goal, where Jacob Trouba didn’t close the gap quickly enough on the puck carrier, and didn’t stick with him after a drop pass, allowing him to pick up a loose puck in front and bury.
Cycle: The Ducks manufactured a high percentage of puck possession time in the offensive zone in this game, creating some excellent high-danger chances. An encouraging aspect was their willingness to skate pucks out of corners and incorporate high forwards in plays between the tops of the circles and the offensive blueline.
Having a high F3 on the cycle allows the Ducks to attack a defensive structure where the opposing center is drawn away from the low slot. However, the frustrating aspect was the Ducks’ decision-making and puck-management in that area, often holding onto pucks slightly too long, causing an inability to keep pucks moving and occasionally leading to odd-man breaks the other way.
The Ducks will look to end their roller coaster season with a win and head into the playoffs with confidence, as they’ll head to Tennessee to take on the Nashville Predators on Thursday.