At long last, the 2024-25 season has arrived for the Anaheim Ducks. Thanks to a multitude of factors – a healthy mix of young and veteran talent in all three phases of the game, young stars primed for breakouts, a second-year head coach, and many more – this is a season of reckoning for a Ducks team has not sniffed competitive hockey in six seasons. Heck, it’s been that long since they’ve played competitive hockey in February.
Game one is a matchup against one of the Ducks’ rebuilding contemporaries, the San Jose Sharks, whose new face of the franchise, Macklin Celebrini, electrified in his NHL debut earlier this week. However, the Ducks too have several young stars that should not only contain Celebrini but also put forth great performances of their own. We’re mere moments from finding out, so let’s preview the first game of the campaign by looking at storylines and personnel.
Ducks Roster Looks the Best It Has in a Long Time
We at The Hockey Writers wrote all summer about what lies ahead for the Ducks in 2024-25. We set expectations for players, predicted lineups and statistics, and outlined keys for success. With the regular season upon us, the speculation is done and we know who will be in the lineup night in and night out for this team.
Related: Anaheim Ducks 2024-25 Season Predictions
As expected, Tristan Luneau, Olen Zellweger, and Cutter Gauthier made the opening night roster. Apart from John Gibson, who is currently recovering from an emergency appendectomy, everyone is healthy. There are legitimate scoring threats on three of the four forward lines.
The defense pairings are, on paper, a fine mix of grizzled defense-first veterans and exuberant, smooth-skating modern young defensemen. There are still so many questions to be answered on how or if this lineup and its combinations will gel now that games count, but there is no denying that the Ducks begin the season tonight with more talent on the roster than in any of the previous six seasons. How will they fare against the Sharks?
Ducks’ Keys to the Game: Improved Discipline
Poor discipline spread throughout the Ducks’ lineup like the bubonic plague in 2023-24 and served as a principal reason for their struggles. The lack of discipline exhibited by Mason McTavish, Frank Vatrano, Radko Gudas, and Ryan Strome was inexplicably awful, as each of these players had no less than 85 penalty minutes.
The Ducks have zero chance of improving this season if they do not shore up their discipline, and it starts tonight. They need to set the tone with a style of play that is clean, hard-working, and competitive. They have preached that all training camp, so we’ll see if that holds true once the puck drops.
Ducks’ Keys to the Game: Contain Celebrini and Company
The Sharks are coming off an up-and-down first game of the season that saw them blow a three-goal third-period lead to the St. Louis Blues. Celebrini and Tyler Toffoli, the Sharks’ flashiest offseason additions, who led the way with two points each, will be the two players that the Ducks need to keep an eye on. Celebrini demonstrated his ability to make plays immediately with a smooth spinning behind-the-back pass that caromed off a Blues defender and into the net.
His quickness, creativity, and hockey IQ will be a handful, but the Ducks’ blue line offers a variety of looks that should make it difficult for him and his teammates to operate. They need to use the speed and physicality of each pairing to disrupt the rhythm and flow of the Sharks attack. Look for Gudas, the newly appointed captain, to lead the way in that regard.
Ducks’ Keys to the Game: New-Look Power-Play Units Need to Convert
I am not in the Ducks’ locker room, but I imagine one of the mantras to their season is “Take fewer penalties, draw more, and convert on more power plays.” They converted 18.3% of their power-play chances in 2023-24, good for 23rd in the NHL. With an influx of youth and skill into the full-time lineup on both sides of the puck, there is good reason for optimism that the power play will be an area of significant improvement for this team.
The power-play units are expected to feature finishers like Troy Terry, Vatrano, and Gauthier, and facilitators like Trevor Zegras, McTavish, and Leo Carlsson. We’re also likely to see Pavel Mintyukov and Zellweger quarterbacking these units, with Luneau also seeing some valuable ice in these situations.
The youth of this group of players is a double-edged sword in the sense that the exuberance that makes it exciting to watch also makes it prone to turnovers and poor decisions. As we saw in the previous campaign, the Ducks must cash in on power-play opportunities. They need to make teams pay. For the first time in a long time, the Ducks have seven or eight forwards and three to four defensemen who could feasibly play on the man advantage. When was the last time that was the case?
Ducks’ Player to Watch: Tristan Luneau
It’s impossible to pick one player to watch each night, but let’s try. Watch Luneau. He is coming off a major injury that ended his season, at any level, in January. He is loaded with potential and is the only right-shot defenseman in the Ducks’ lineup with true offensive capabilities. That alone means he will get a lot of opportunities to shine.
Expect Luneau to be a major factor tonight on special teams and 5-on-5, where he will likely play with the seasoned Cam Fowler.
A Good Start Goes a Long Way
Nobody ever earns a playoff berth after the first game of the season. But what we can learn from the beginning of a campaign is how ready a team is for game action that matters. If the Ducks start fast, then we’ll know that the team collectively has bought into the notion that it’s time to start making strides forward. It’s an important season in Orange County, and the time is now. Puck drop is at 7 p.m. Pacific at the SAP Center.
