Despite expensive roster players Frank Vatrano and Mason McTavish watching from the sidelines, Anaheim stunned Vegas to level the series as Joel Quenneville’s unconventional roster gambles continue paying dividends.
The Anaheim Ducks are two games into the second round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, a spot not many predicted them to be in at the start of the 2025-26 season. They will bring a 1-1 series back to Orange County, where they’ll host the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday evening.
The Ducks’ path to the playoffs has been long and winding, but the personnel that has them where they are is only eclipsed in confusion by the personnel that hasn’t.
Exactly a year ago, the Ducks hired Joel Quenneville as their next head coach. In attendance at his introductory press conference were Ducks players Troy Terry, Frank Vatrano, and Ryan Strome.
The latter two surprisingly had an extremely difficult time carving a role out for themselves on the Ducks depth chart in 2025-26 after playing such prominent roles over the previous three seasons for the organization.
Strome entered the season with an oblique injury that cost him the first 15 games of the season for Anaheim. He only suited up for 33 games after the injury and scored just nine points (3-6=9). He was moved to the Calgary Flames at the trade deadline in exchange for a seventh-round pick.
Vatrano, like Strome, had difficulty impacting games from lower in the Ducks’ lineup for the first half of the season. He sustained a shoulder injury in late December and took some time away from the team due to personal reasons.
He played very little down the stretch of the regular season, often serving as a healthy scratch, in a greatly limited role, and finished with nine points (5-4=9) in 50 games. Vatrano is in the first year of a three-year, $18 million contract extension that, due to deferred salary, carries an AAV of $4.57 million.
Another Ducks player who has struggled mightily this season is young, talented forward Mason McTavish. McTavish endured an extended contract negotiation after coming off his ELC that lasted well into Ducks training camp.
The two sides agreed to terms on a six-year contract with a $7 million AAV, but McTavish missed roughly half of camp, setting him back when it came to learning the intricacies of a new system, a new coaching staff, and several new players. He finished the regular season with a career-low 41 points (17-24=41) in 75 games and was healthy scratched a couple of times late in the year.
Surprisingly, defenseman Ian Moore has been a staple of the fourth line, playing right wing, for the latter part of the season and was a fixture in that position in the Ducks’ opening-round six-game series win over the Edmonton Oilers.
Through the Ducks’ first eight games of the playoffs, Vatrano has yet to suit up, serving as a healthy scratch.
Kirby Lee-Imagn ImagesThe Ducks lost Game 1 of each of their series, and just like he did in the first round, Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville made a last-minute lineup adjustment after running through morning skate and warmups with a seemingly set lineup for Game 2.
In the first round, it was a simple swap of first and third-line left wingers, Chris Kreider and Cutter Gauthier. In the second round, the adjustment was far more dramatic.
Again, after running through typical line rushes, Quenneville scratched Ian Moore and Mason McTavish in favor of physical forward Ross Johnston and high-motor, versatile forward Jansen Harkins.
“It’s never easy. Never an easy decision,” Quenneville said after Game 1. “It’s not punishment, it’s that we want to have more troops in this series. We think we’re going to need everybody. That was basically the reason.”
The Ducks won Game 2 by a score of 3-1, and Quenneville typically doesn’t change a winning lineup unless injury or outside circumstances dictate.
Vatrano was signed to his contract extension on Jan. 5, 2025, and McTavish signed his on Sept. 27, 2025. At the time of their signings, both players were seen as important pieces of the Ducks’ present and future. Less than 18 months later, they’re healthy scratches in the second round of the playoffs, the organization’s most important games in nine years.
The duo represents $13 million in actual annual money and an annual cap hit of $11.57 million; a lot of money was sitting in the press box for Game 1 and projects to be in Game 2 as well. Questions about their futures with the Ducks franchise moving forward are, and will likely remain, understandably in question.
Though Vatrano’s contract seems unappetizing for opposing teams coming off the year he had in 2025-26, in the three prior seasons, he scored 22, 37, and 21 goals for the Ducks. He’s 32 years old and has two years left on his contract.
The Ducks were able to move on from Strome, who was outscored by Vatrano in his first three seasons with the Ducks and had a higher cap hit, at the deadline, without having to retain. A limited free agent class could drive a team to inquire about Vatrano, and the Ducks likely wouldn’t have to part with assets or retain to move on from him.
If the Ducks intend to move on from him, McTavish’s trade value likely isn’t close to what it was at this time last year. However, his combination of youth (23 years old), size, skill, previous success, and lingering draft pedigree likely indicates it may not be completely diminished.
There is some precedent in this scenario. Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek previously moved on from Trevor Zegras when his value was at its lowest. While the trade brought back Ryan Poehling to join the roster, Eric Nilson at the 2025 Draft, and another 4th round pick on the way, it’s fair to question the timing of the deal, as seemingly more could have been had if Zegras had played any amount of games under Quenneville or Verbeek had simply waited until free agency was over and teams were more desperate to add.
This upcoming summer became far more interesting when it comes to the future of the Ducks organization, as they’ll have several high-profile decisions to make, whether that be the projected big-money extensions for Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier, extensions for RFA blueliners Pavel Mintyukov and Olen Zellweger, potentially re-signing veterans Radko Gudas, John Carlson, and Jacob Trouba, and now the futures of Frank Vatrano and Mason McTavish.
For the Ducks at this present moment, their focus is presumably narrowed on the current task at hand: success in their second-round series against the Vegas Golden Knights.
It can be assumed that the second the Ducks’ season is over, Verbeek will be one of the busier GMs in the NHL, as he aims to further build on this season’s success and flesh out the roster on their journey to becoming a perennial Cup-contending team for the foreseeable future.
The Ducks’ contending window is now fully open, and a multitude of high-profile decisions are on the ever-nearing horizon.