ANAHEIM –– The Ducks will rack up plenty of frequent flyer miles on an upcoming five-game trip that’ll take them to Chicago, Nashville, Boston, Tampa Bay and Florida.
For Ducks coach Joel Quenneville, it’ll be his first visit to Chicago, where he won three Stanley Cups between 2010 and 2015, since being reinstated by the NHL. He was suspended for multiple seasons due to his improper response to a sexual abuse scandal in Chicago involving video coach Brad Aldrich.
“I’m excited about it, certainly we could start off our trip in a positive way and getting off to a good start would be the perfect beginning to our trip,” Quenneville told reporters. “There’s a lot of great memories from our days there … I’m always excited about going back there.”
While the attention will be squarely on Quenneville before the game – the Chicago media may have more than one question for him about his time there and his absence from the league – once the puck drops, there’ll be an emphasis on the first goal.
The Ducks have yet to open the scoring in four games this season, which they have split evenly (2-2-0). They’ll face the rebuilding Blackhawks, the dizzied Predators, volatile Bruins, stagnant Lightning and the heavily injured but highly accomplished Florida Panthers, whom Quenneville was coaching at the time his suspension was levied.
So, what will it take to strike first?
“I don’t know, I guess just score the first one,” center Mason McTavish said. “Warm up better? I don’t know, I’m not too sure.”
Quenneville said that in four games he had not noticed a particular pattern, saying the opening salvos from opponents were all somewhat distinct. He said his club was “ready to start games” but was perhaps “a bit hesitant” in the early going.
There was no hesitation at the end of the second period when tempers flared in a skirmish that even got the goalies involved against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday.
“The guys are superglued together here, we’ve got a great group where everybody loves each other, which is awesome,” McTavish said.
The Ducks will likely have a little less muscle but a bit more morale on the road. Sam Colangelo, who hasn’t played since a season-opening loss in Seattle, appeared likely to draw in for enforced Ross Johnston. Grinder Jansen Harkins and veteran forward Ryan Strome remained unavailable and were not expected to play on the trip due to their respective injuries.
One player whose spot in the lineup seems more than cemented is Leo Carlsson. He leads the Ducks with six points, half of them coming on the power play. He scored the Ducks’ lone goal in a 4-1 loss to Carolina and compiled five points in the Ducks’ first two victories of 2025-26.
“We’re seeing him have the puck more than we saw in [training] camp. He’s working hard. His use of his stick has been better. He’s sustaining pucks and his speed is lethal, so he’s been effective,” Quenneville said.
Carlsson said he had put in long hours in the gym over the summer and that he felt stronger. In terms of both on-ice and off-ice work, Carlsson said he was still painting in broad strokes.
“Boring answer, [I worked on] everything. Really, that’s every summer,” said Carlsson, who had 45 points in 76 games last season. “I’m at that age where I can build a lot of muscle and still keep my skill. The focus is just to get better [in every way].”
Carlsson, taken second overall in 2023, will face the top pick from his draft class, Chicago’s Connor Bedard. The Blackhawks star has matched his point total, but in two more games, and continues to be poorly supported by a rebuilding roster for Chicago (2-2-2).
In Nashville, the arrival of Steven Stamkos and two other marquee free agents two summers ago actually made the Predators (2-2-1) significantly worse. They further revamped an aging group with mixed results thus far.
Another disappointment from last season, Boston (3-2-0) got off to a swimming start by winning its first three games under former Kings assistant Marco Sturm. But the fifth European and second German-born NHL head coach has seen his club drop two straight since.
In their final two games of the trip, the Ducks will face the two teams that have represented the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Final for this entire decade, with the Lightning winning the East from 2020-22 and the Panthers doing the same the past three seasons. Each squad won two Stanley Cups during that same span.
Yet the Bolts (1-2-2) have been low-voltage thus far while the Panthers (3-3-0) face tremendous obstacles in their quest for a three-peat. Though they managed to re-sign Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad and Brad Marchand, they’ll be without tenacious power forward Matthew Tkachuk (torn adductor muscle) until at least December and masterful two-way center Aleksander Barkov (reconstructive knee surgery) for the entire regular season, at a minimum.
While the Ducks face a surprisingly reasonable schedule – the trip unfolds over 10 days with no back-to-back action – they’ll undoubtedly be focused on their own game as they seek to improve cohesion, especially on defense. They rank eighth from the bottom on the penalty kill and have allowed the fourth-most goals per game in the NHL during the early going.
“It’s a work in progress,” said Quenneville of the Ducks’ overall game. “I’m looking forward to getting to a standard of play and expecting us to play at that level, game in and game out, and when we get there, I’ll let you know.”