Ducks Disappoint on Road Trip, Drop Further in Standings

The Anaheim Ducks embarked on a season-long six-game road trip on Jan. 9, beginning with a matchup against the St. Louis Blues and concluding on Jan. 18 against the Florida Panthers, with games against the Philadelphia Flyers, Carolina Hurricanes, Washington Capitals, and Tampa Bay Lightning between.

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Heading into the trip, the Ducks were 24th in the NHL standings, with a 17-18-4 record, and had won four of five games against teams firmly in possession of playoff spots. They were finding ways to win despite being outplayed for most of those games, and underlying metrics suggested they were lucky to eke out those points in the standings.

Despite the lack of offense and abundance of time spent in the defensive zone, the Ducks were clawing out wins with the support of perhaps the top goaltending tandem in the NHL: Lukas Dostal and John Gibson. They were on the verge of reaching the .500 plateau for the first time since Dec. 1, but the wheels fell off in spectacular fashion.

The Ducks road trip was primed as a "make or break" endeavor and they were thoroughly outplayed at nearly every turn. They went 1-4-1, were shutout three times, outscored by a total of 24-8, and outshot 206-155.

"We had two horrible games to start," Ducks head coach Greg Cronin said after team practice on Monday. "I really liked the way we came back in the Carolina game and then the Capitals game was an even game.

"The Tampa Bay (game) was a fun game to watch. I thought it could have gone either way. And then I felt pretty good about the Florida game. Everybody wants to win every game, but you go on a six-game road trip, Washington's number one. Carolina's up in that one, two, three, four position. Tampa Bay and Florida are high-end teams.

"Those are benchmark teams. If we can get through that at 3-3, I'd be happy," Cronin continued. "I'm not very happy that we only had three points out of a possible 12."

At 5v5, they held 31.8% of the goal share (7 to 15), 43.3% of the shots on goal share (127 to 166), and 41.3% of the expected goal share (10.64 to 15.14).

Their special teams were even more lackluster. The power play went 0-10, extending an anemic stretch where they've now converted just three of their last 46 chances with a man advantage and sit 31st in the NHL at 12.5% on the season. The penalty kill went 11-16 (68.8%) and now sits 28th in the NHL, killing at a 73.1% clip.

Diagnosing the Ducks' Offensive Struggles

As a team, the Ducks are defensively displaying, and have displayed all season, diligence and attention to detail in defensive zone coverage. They aren't allowing as many dangerous seam passes, blowing as many assignments, or losing battles at the rate they had in years past. However, they are spending copious amounts of time in their end without possession and expending energy, which has led to eventual breakdowns and goals allowed. They often have trouble generating the early turnovers they need to counter on the rush the other way.

"Well, we talked about it, they know. The players know exactly where we failed and where we need to get better," Cronin said. "It's a really hard league to win in if you don't score.

"Hockey's a really tricky sport because it's not a stop-and-go thing. It's a fast-paced, organic game and you clearly want to generate more chances than other teams do.

"Going down the rabbit hole here, we're a rush team. We haven't established an offensive zone, puck possession personality yet."

The amount of time the Ducks spend defending has limited the amount of offense they're able to generate and when they do get zone time, their cycle is based around creating traffic and funneling pucks to the crease. They seldom get second chance opportunities after shot attempts and are forced to immediately retreat defensively again.

The Ducks' key young pieces are more catered to play a rush-based attacking system, a system similar to the New Jersey Devils, Dallas Stars, and Vegas Golden Knights. It feels as though the way they're attempting to generate offense is non-conducive to the roster.

"You can't be a real physical heavy team if you're not a big, physical, heavy team. Your physicality is not there, right? So I want to be a possession team," Cronin said. "I want to be able to keep pucks alive in the offensive zone. Are we built for that right now? Maybe not.

"So what we do naturally well is we come out of our zone well and we do get chances off the rush. We do get chances off the neutral zone regroups, which is a speed game. So, we can skate. We can play a track meet game, but we have to learn to defend the puck in the offensive zone."

Cronin's comments indicate the Ducks coaching staff has seemingly identified the strength of the majority of the roster: speed and transition. Catering to that aspect of the game will be paramount if they're to turn the season and, on a larger scope, turn the rebuild around.

The system issues that the Ducks have been plagued with and, until the road trip, have been able to overcome had manifested on the scoreboard during their recent road trip.

The Ducks are in a delicate time in their rebuild as they have most of their young core pieces on the NHL roster and in premium roles with veterans surrounding and insulating them. They have the makings of a team primed to take the next step toward contention, but most of their key, important pieces for the future (Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Mason McTavish, Trevor Zegras, Olen Zellweger, and Pavel Mintyukov) have all either plateaued or regressed in 2024-25.

The Ducks will play five of their next seven games at home, so if a turnaround is to happen, now seems to be the time, starting tonight with the second leg of a home-and-home against the Florida Panthers.

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