As of Wednesday morning, the Anaheim Ducks have the NHL’s top power play. They’ve converted on 19 of 50 opportunities (38.0%) through 15 games of the 2026-27 season.

Traditionally, they’ve been one of the league’s lowest-ranked power plays. Even a year ago, when they broke through, ended their long rebuild, and made the playoffs for the first time in seven years, they did it by converting on just 18.6% of their man-advantage opportunities, good enough for 23rd in the NHL.

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This year, assistant coach Jay Woodcroft has identified his five players with which to form a true top unit, running counter to the organization’s philosophy of the past several seasons, where they ran two units with equal ice time distribution.

This season, when healthy, the top unit, consisting of Jackson LaCombe, Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Beckett Sennecke, and Mikael Granlund, has been one of the most cohesive, creative, and deadly in the history of the Ducks/Mighty Ducks franchise to this point in the still-young season.

What’s made them so deadly hasn’t just been their superior talent. Most NHL teams can ice a potent five-man unit for 1:30 of a two-minute power play. It’s been their connectivity, support, understanding of each other and their objective, coupled with a freedom to improvise within the structure to best unleash and optimize their individual skill sets.

“You look at most of the top teams in the league, and they all have an unreal power play,” Ducks forward Beckett Sennecke said. “So, when the teams are going to kind of try and take liberties and try and slow you down with their stick or whatever, and take penalties, you've got to make sure you have a good power play to capitalize on it.”

The Ducks’ man-advantage started the season off hot, scoring on six of their first 13 attempts through five games. It cooled off a bit as losses and injuries piled up, but in their last five games, they’ve regained their stride, scoring on 12 of their last 16 power plays (75.0%), including each of their last seven attempts.

Fans have gotten used to how the typical NHL power play operates: the five positions assumed by the players, how entries are manufactured, how pucks move throughout the typical 1-3-1 structure, etc. The Ducks have added wrinkles to all of those aspects of their power play and keep their opponents guessing every step of the way.

Every time their top unit hops over the boards, they run a different breakout/entry wrinkle than the previous opportunity, and sometimes they run a different one each time LaCombe retrieves a puck.

Typically, LaCombe will retrieve a puck, Gauthier will post at the far blueline on his weak side, Granlund will post on his strong side, and Carlsson and Sennecke will act as the trailers as LaCombe skates the puck up the ice for the eventual drop pass. On their next power play, the five players will run something entirely different. Carlsson may be the lone trailer; Sennecke may hang at the far blueline, only to pop out for an outlet; Granlund and Gauthier may switch sides; LaCombe may read the opposing forwards, anticipating the drop and single-handedly gain entry, sparking a 3v2, etc. They rarely gain the offensive blueline the same way twice.

The same strategy is deployed as they fight for possession and eventually establish their structure. Time isn’t wasted getting all five players in their favored positions (net-front, bumper, flank, point), and instead they allow play to develop organically, sending second quicks to support a potentially battling teammate, and rotate throughout the offensive zone accordingly.

For example, if LaCombe pinches down the wall to win a battle for a rimmed puck, and he’s sent toward the goal line, he won’t hustle back to his spot at the point simply because that’s his designated position. Instead, he’ll naturally finagle his way to the bumper or flank, weaving his way back to the point, only if that’s how the in-zone play unfolds. All five players are comfortable in all five positions on the ice, despite where their desired spots are.

It’s that willingness to assume a teammate’s position, rotate, switch, weave, and support that keeps their opponent guessing, in addition to their obvious playmaking, shooting, and deception talents. All five players are threats to score at any moment and in any fashion, which forces opponents to choose which area to attempt to eliminate. So far, the Ducks have done well to identify those areas and exploit an alternative one.

In the Ducks’ most recent 5-4 win over the Vancouver Canucks, the Ducks scored on all three of their power plays. The first came from a one-time goal from the bumper off the stick of Mikael Granlund, primarily assisted by Beckett Sennecke. Vancouver adjusted and collapsed on Granlund in the bumper during the next two man-advantages, which opened a lane from Sennecke at the bottom of the left circle to Gauthier at the top of the left circle, where the latter scored on back-to-back one-timers.

The Ducks power play obviously won’t continue to produce at a 70, 80, 100% clip for the remainder of the season. However, they’ve shown the capability to adjust and counter-adjust to any look the opposing penalty kill throws at them. Now, the hope is that when the power play eventually cools off, even if slightly, the 5v5 play will come around on both sides of the puck.

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