Injuries and illness sideline key players, forcing the Ducks to shuffle lines and rely on unexpected contributors for offensive spark.
With the 2025-26 season creeping closer to the 50-game mark, the Anaheim Ducks have gotten their season somewhat back on track after a nine-game winless streak derailed it.
The winless streak is over, but now they are forced to deal with new adversities in the form of bugs, both injury and viral. The Ducks have been without a group of forwards at different points over the past week-plus due to various ailments: Leo Carlsson (Morel-Lavallee lesion), Cutter Gauthier (illness), Chris Kreider (illness), and Troy Terry (upper-body).
Ailments to those four forwards added to the list of unavailable Anaheim players that already included Frank Vatrano (shoulder fracture), who’s nearly three weeks into a six-week recovery timetable, and backup goaltender Petr Mrazek, who was placed on IR on Jan. 7 with an unknown recovery timetable.
Carlsson had missed the Ducks' final game before the holiday break on Dec. 23, leading to a potential conclusion that he’d been dealing with this lesion in his thigh for some time before that game and ever since, which would line up with his drop in production and on-ice effectiveness. Carlsson had a procedure done to treat his thigh on Friday in Los Angeles and is expected to miss the next 3-5 weeks, projected to return to the Ducks’ lineup after the Olympic break.
Terry has missed the Ducks’ last five games with an upper-body injury. He tried to re-enter the lineup on several occasions over the last week, participating in several practices and morning skates, but ultimately landed on IR on Friday with an unspecified timeline for return.
Kreider and Gauthier had been sidelined with illnesses. Kreider missed the last two games, the Ducks’ home-and-home series with the Los Angeles Kings over the weekend. Gauthier missed just one game, Tuesday’s 3-1 win over the Dallas Stars, but played only 8:54 TOI in Friday’s 3-2 shootout win over the Kings.
He didn’t take a shift in regulation after the 13:18 mark of the third period in that game and was awarded one shift in the overtime period. Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville stated it was a coach’s decision based on his recovery from his illness. Gauthier was back to form on Saturday, logging 16:43 TOI and four shots on goal in the Ducks' 2-1 OT win over LA.
The Ducks have been severely shorthanded at the top of their lineup for their current three-game win streak. They’ve been effectively icing two second lines and two fourth lines night in and night out, affording top-six minutes and opportunities to players like Ryan Strome and Alex Killorn, who’ve struggled to carve out roles for themselves at various times this season.
Strome has two points in his last two games, skating alongside center Mason McTavish on the listed top line. Killorn hasn’t impacted the scoresheet in the last five games, but he’s been vital to the Ducks’ efforts toward tightening up in their end at 5v5 and on the penalty kill. Anaheim has allowed just four goals in their last two games and killed 11 of 12 penalties.
Playing so shorthanded has also caused healthy top-six forwards like Beckett Sennecke and Mikael Granlund to carry more of the offensive burden with Carlsson and Terry out of the lineup. They’ve been on a line together with Killorn and have delivered dynamic play-creation and have generated the majority of the team’s high-danger offense through their last three games.
Granlund has four points (2-2=4) in his last five games, and Sennecke has been the team’s most impactful play driver shift-to-shift, currently riding a five-game point streak in which he's notched six points (1-5=6).
“Everybody’s doing it. Every line ends up in the offensive zone for some of their shifts,” Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville said after the Ducks' 2-1 OT win on Saturday. “That consistency is something that we hadn’t seen, even when we were scoring a lot of goals. So, way more predictability in our game. The effort’s been consistently high-end.”
Through their latest stretch, the operative word from Quenneville down to the roster has been “simplify.” Whether defensively more astute and selective on when to pinch, support, and pressure, or streamlining their breakouts and entries, playing a bit more north-south through the neutral zone to establish a forecheck, their decision-making has been crisper and somewhat safer, yielding needed results.
“I don’t think we want to deviate from that,” Quenneville said when asked about the impact of simplifying regarding offensively talented players at morning skate before they were to host the New York Rangers on Monday. “There’s a rhyme or reason how we play without the puck, and if we’re consistent in that, it’s going to help our 5v5 possession game and can play to the strengths of having the puck and doing their thing.
“So, we’re not taking away anything with what anybody wants to do offensively. Just be more selective when it’s time to make plays, and the simpler, the better. Get it to the net instead of trying to get it to the slot to somebody that’s not there. I don’t think we want to change, whether it’s guys coming back in and the guys that are in the lineup coming in tonight. To me, just play hockey the right way, and it gives us the best opportunity to keep ourselves in the game.”
The blueline has been fortunately healthy through all this, and Ian Moore is even playing a bottom-six wing role through this stretch. Defensemen have been noticeably more diligent, choosier with their pinches, and making the simple first passes out of their end. The reliable decisions they’ve been making in their end have led to cleaner, more predictable exits and less time spent in the defensive zone.
“Making the simple plays the last couple games,” Ducks defenseman Jacob Trouba said. “Not really shooting ourselves in the foot, getting caught, turning pucks over at the bluelines, or not getting pucks deep, or pinching, or whatever it may be.
“I think we’ve given a lot of opportunities that we don’t need to. I think the last couple of games we’ve done a better job of just minimizing those opportunities against.”
The bluelines have been pain points for the Ducks at times, as forwards and defensemen alike attempt to connect, skate, or stickhandle upon exits and entries, which has at times led to turnovers at some of the more dangerous areas of the ice. The “simplification” mandate is expected to extend even beyond the dates when players like Terry and Carlsson return to the lineup.
“I don’t think it’s because of being without Troy or Leo,” Forward Chris Kreider said on whether their streamlined approach was due to the absence of their two most productive forwards. “I think that’s just a team commitment to playing like that. Up and down our lineup, when you get punched in the face and lose nine in a row, eventually, something’s got to change. Do the little things, especially at this time of year, moving forward, that help win hockey games. I think that’s the focus.”