The Anaheim Ducks entered the 2024-25 campaign with renewed hope that their half a decade’s worth of painfully deficient scoring woes would turn a corner now that they were fielding the best mix of offensive talent (on both sides of the puck) that they’ve had in a long time. The mix of youth, skill, creativity, and veteran savvy was supposed to click or at least begin to exhibit signs of clicking. We’re 12 games into the season, long enough to make our first legitimate assessment of the team, and the offense looks lost, incohesive, and bereft of the finishing ability that many experts, fans, and coaches thought and probably expected to show up.
Related: Ahead of Homestand, Ducks Must Learn From Road Trip and Adapt
This has been painfully obvious through the first two games of their six-game homestand. Here’s a look at what went wrong in Tuesday night’s 5-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks.
Ducks’ Previously Hot Sources of Offense Have Cooled Off
Leo Carlsson and Troy Terry have been the only consistently productive players on offense this season in Anaheim. When they are not involved, the team doesn’t win. Those are the facts because Trevor Zegras, Mason McTavish, Alex Killorn, Frank Vatrano, and Ryan Strome have been invisible most nights. Cutter Gauthier has yet to score his first career goal, but he is firing the puck on net every chance he gets. He leads the Ducks in shots and the NHL in total shots without a goal.
Without Terry and Carlsson’s production, the Ducks have no chance, and the last handful of games has proven as much. They have been woefully outplayed and outworked in recent weeks by the underwhelming New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks, and Canucks.
Terry has one goal in his previous six games, while Carlsson has one point in his last five. Terry factored into the scoring against the Canucks with an assist, but it’s not enough. He and Carlsson need help, and they aren’t getting it. McTavish has been okay, but he isn’t playing with the finisher’s touch or physicality that he began last season with.
Olen Zellweger Is the Only Player Producing Anything From Blue Line
Making matters worse is the complete lack of production by any Ducks defender not named Olen Zellweger, who scored the Ducks’ lone goal last night. He has completely usurped Pavel Mintyukov as the key facilitator of the attack from the back end and has played with poise, energy, and aggression all campaign.
Mintyukov, on the other hand, hasn’t factored into a contest offensively other than his two-goal game in the home opener, nearly 10 games ago. We knew that one of these two young men would assume this role on the blue line this season, and Zellweger has demonstrated that he is more deserving of the opportunity so far. Head coach Greg Cronin offered high praise for the youngster in his post-game comments.
Looking elsewhere, be warned, it’s dire. Cam Fowler has one point since the season opener. Radko Gudas and Brian Dumoulin, not overly offensive players to be fair, have zero and two points, respectively. Jackson LaCombe has only played six games. Tristan Luneau was in and out of the lineup before finally getting sent down to the San Diego Gulls of the American Hockey League, where he should get more consistent minutes. The team needs to afford the youth on the roster, specifically on defense, some grace because much is asked of them despite their age. But there are minimal excuses for the veterans to be this nonexistent. I can’t think of any.
Ducks’ Top 9 Can’t Produce Anything at 5-on-5
As inconsistent as the Ducks’ power play has been so far, it delivered their only goal in yesterday’s loss. It also was the difference in the win over the New York Islanders on Oct. 29. Their five-on-five game, particularly by their top three forward lines, is another story. If their five-on-five game produces offense at all, it has been minimal, specifically in the last two weeks. Their last goal at even strength came from a line that featured Ross Johnston and Brock McGinn. Fair play to them for doing what the rest of the forwards couldn’t.
We can lean on the talent and potential of many underperforming players to reasonably predict that the Ducks will start producing more offense. Zegras, McTavish, Vatrano, Gauthier, and others will score goals – it’s just a matter of when. It needs to happen soon, or the Ducks will plummet toward the Western Conference basement. Losing to the Blackhawks was bad, and the effort against the Canucks was worse.
When, or How, Will it Turn Around?
In the same post-game comments, Cronin provided little reason for optimism regarding the team’s goal-scoring. He, like many of us, is perplexed by the anemic state of the Ducks’ offense and stated that he doesn’t have the answers. The offensive line combinations thus far have proved ineffective. There isn’t one duo, or trio, that is working.
Last season, he could lean on McTavish and Vatrano in the early going. This season, it’s Terry and to a lesser extent Carlsson. The only important question right now is, where do they go from here? It’s early and the Ducks are only at 4-6-2, but in a season where the pieces were finally in place to start building positive momentum, the struggles on offense suggest anything but that.
The Ducks have scored more than two goals in just five games and just one goal in five others. Their 25 goals in 12 games have brought their goals-per-game average to 2.08. That’s not going to get it done against their next opponent, the Minnesota Wild, who are 8-2-2. The Ducks have an extra day off and don’t play until Friday, but that’s not enough time to fix the problems plaguing this offense. I guess we’ll just have to see if good fortune and puck luck start going the Ducks’ way.
