Having picked up just two of a possible 10 points thus far during their longest stretch at home this season, the Ducks will seek to salvage two more as they wrap up their residency against the Detroit Red Wings on Friday night.
Despite their lack of tangible results, the Ducks were satisfied with elements of their game, stretches of competition and their development process.
“Obviously, we don’t like the outcomes of the games. We thought we could pull out more wins during this homestand,” captain Radko Gudas said. “But I thought we were growing as a group, and were playing better and better.”
Forward Brock McGinn said he felt the team had more strides toward forging a stronger identity and that its efforts could soon translate into victories, something the Ducks could use desperately as they are in a four-way tie for the NHL’s lowest point total presently. Ironically, another of those four teams is the Nashville Predators, who landed multiple prominent free agents that the Ducks had also pursued this offseason.
Ducks coach Greg Cronin said he was encouraged by the team’s play in the defensive zone, asserting that it had tidied up some “shaky” facets in its own end. That progress came even as two of the Ducks’ most seasoned veterans, Cam Fowler and Robby Fabbri, landed on injured reserve this week. Center Mason McTavish should also be considered questionable at best for Friday due to an upper-body issue while Urho Vaakainen’s absence at practice, per the Sporting Tribune’s Zach Cavanaugh, could open the door for Drew Helleson’s first NHL game since June 13, 2023.
Cronin lauded the recent play of Brett Leason, who sat for the first three games of the homestand but has three points in two outings, a win over Columbus in which he scored a goal and a tight loss to Vegas in which he set up two tallies.
Cronin said Leason was the first player on the ice for extra reps at practice while he was scratched and that his outwardly calm demeanor contrasted his high level of competitiveness. Last season, Cronin described Leason as the sort of forward who could anchor a third line potentially. As a center against Columbus and even more so on the wing versus Vegas, Leason did just that.
“He’s a good player and he’s still a relatively young kid. I think the staff here did a good job pulling him off of waivers when he was available a couple years ago,” Cronin said of the 25-year-old right wing. “Hopefully he can build on it and we can build off of him.”
The Ducks’ opponent Friday has appeared to be in a perpetual build ever since its quarter-century long string of playoff berths gave way to eight consecutive campaigns and counting without a single postseason game.
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Detroit sits in the middle of a crowded pack of five .500-ish teams in the Atlantic Division. It added former Kings goalie Cam Talbot and winger Vladimir Tarasenko over the summer. Tarasenko won the Stanley Cup with Florida last year and, like Fabbri, with St. Louis in 2019. The Red Wings also retained three-time champion Patrick Kane’s services after he signed about a third of the way into last season.
Their main goals were keeping winger Lucas Raymond and defenseman Moritz Seider in the fold. They signed extensions of eight and seven years, respectively, and currently pace the Red Wings in overall scoring and points by a defenseman, respectively.
Detroit at Ducks
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Honda Center
TV: Victory+