Ducks bench center Mason McTavish for a second straight game. Coaches emphasize hard decisions and a path back to his expected performance level.
Following a four-game road trip to face the NHL’s eastern-most Canadian teams, the Anaheim Ducks will briefly return to Orange County for a matchup against the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday.
The Ducks’ trip wasn’t short on storylines. Their 6-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday was the epicenter of controversy, as Ducks captain Radko Gudas received a five-game suspension for delivering a knee-on-knee hit to Leafs captain Auston Matthews, a knee that caused a grade-three MCL tear and a quad contusion, which will force the Leafs superstar out for the remainder of the 2025-26 season.
To end the trip, the Ducks won a high-octane matchup with the Montreal Canadiens 4-3, which saw the return of star forward Troy Terry and the debut of newly-acquired veteran defenseman John Carlson.
That game also saw the Ducks’ coaching staff healthy scratch fourth-year center Mason McTavish (23), whose struggles this season, and especially recently, have been understated due to the team’s relative success, as they make their final push toward their first playoff appearance in eight years.
"Sometimes you got to make hard decisions, and sometimes change might be healthy for the player individually,” Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville told the media following Sunday’s game. “You try different things along the way to give them an opportunity to go.
Hey, let's fight our way back into the lineup and push to get in there and be back to where you're expected to be. That's what we're looking for.”
After producing .54, .66, and .68 points per game in his first three seasons in the NHL, McTavish has only accounted for 32 points (13-19=32) through his first 61 games in 2025-26, a .52 points/game pace.
His struggles had reached a new low heading into Sunday’s scratch, as he’d only found the scoresheet for two assists in his last 12 games, including one in his last nine and having gone without a point in his last five games.
McTavish has always been a streaky player, but even when going through relative dry spells, he’s been able to impact games on forechecks and winning small-area puck battles along the walls. In the past, he’d done well to remain involved in plays, game-to-game, period-to-period, and shift-to-shift. Through this latest stretch, even those aspects have been neutralized, and pinpointing one specific area can prove a fruitless act.
“I think nothing seems to be connected right now. Not getting the puck with speed, not getting the puck much, not skating as much,” McTavish said after practice on Tuesday. “Just thinking a lot out there, I would say, is the biggest thing. I'm very confident, I'll be right, be right back with the guys, and playing a lot in a big role with this team. I have no doubt about that, and just a bump in the road.”
McTavish missed roughly half of Anaheim’s training camp this season due to contract negotiations. It’s possible that could have been a contributing factor. It’s also possible that head coach Joel Quenneville and his coaching staff have implemented a high-octane, puck possession-based system that hasn’t been easy for McTavish to adjust to or that isn’t particularly conducive to his play style.
“Yeah, I mean, who knows, right?” McTavish said when asked if missing part of camp had any effect on his play. “Obviously, we want to be at camp every time, but it’s just the way things worked out. Nobody really knows. Obviously, it’s a little trend, but it’s hard to put your finger on it, I guess.”
Lastly, it’s perceivable that this is a stall in McTavish’s development. He’s yet to round out his 200-foot game, as he’s been one of the NHL’s most negatively-impacful players on the defensive side of the puck this season.
His skating, in terms of foot speed, four-way mobility, and balance, isn’t optimal for top-six centers in the NHL. With his substandard skating, he will be forced to adapt and adjust his game to playing down the middle against the best players in the world. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a considerable weakness if a player can make up for it in other areas of their game.
“It's tough news for the player, and I think that he handled it well,” Quenneville said after Wednesday’s morning skate of McTavish’s reaction to being a healthy scratch. “We see him playing, so it's just a matter of time that we'll get him back in there and he'll be doing his thing.”
McTavish will serve his second straight game as a healthy scratch on Wednesday, as the Ducks host the Philadelphia Flyers. The Ducks remain in first place in the Pacific Division standings and will need McTavish to turn his performance around if he’s to assume an impact role for their upcoming (projected) playoff run.
The young center is in his first year of a newly signed six-year contract carrying an AAV of $7 million. The contract extension and his selection with the third-overall pick in the 2021 NHL draft represent considerable assets spent by the Ducks on McTavish, and as recently as October (if they don’t still), they considered him a significant part of their present and future.
In any regard, these healthy scratches have likely deflated a sizable percentage of any potential trade value. For the Ducks’ and McTavish’s sakes alike, the hope is that this stretch is simply a speed bump and not a sign of things to come moving forward.