The 2024-25 NHL season just wrapped up but there’s already plenty in place for 2025-26 as the preseason schedules were released Friday, with the Ducks laying out their seven-game tuneup that will include three contests at Honda Center.
They won’t leave the state for the entire exhibition docket. They’ll clash with the Kings four times, once in each home venue with additional Freeway Faceoffs scheduled in Ontario’s Toyota Arena and Bakersfield’s Dignity Health Arena, both of which are American Hockey League rinks.
Additionally, the Ducks will play a home-and-home set with the San Jose Sharks and host the recently relocated and newly named Utah Mammoth.
Intrigue figures to abound this preseason for the Ducks as Joel Quenneville, the coach behind the Chicago Blackhawks’ dynasty of the 2010s, takes the helm.
Already having made the biggest deal of the offseason’s earnest start ahead of July 1’s opening of free agency, the Ducks will also likely debut former New York Rangers mainstay Chris Kreider during the schedule. Training camp will also determine if top prospects like Beckett Sennecke and Tristan Luneau will begin the year in the NHL or not.
At 34, Kreider said his best hockey was still in front of him, with both Kreider and Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek predicting a bounceback season after last season was weighed down by a broken hand, back problems and a toxic stew cooking inside the Rangers’ dressing room.
Luneau has made the team out of camp in consecutive campaigns but had his first year derailed by a serious infection and spent most of the second year in the minors, where he flirted with an exceedingly rare point-per-game pace by a defenseman.
Sennecke also had the early part of his 2024-25 fettered by injury, but still ended up with 86 points in 56 junior games, tying him for 14th in the Ontario Hockey League. He finished fourth in postseason scoring with 32 points in 18 playoff games.
DUCKS 2025 PRESEASON SCHEDULE
Sept. 21: vs. Kings, 3 p.m., Toyota Arena, Ontario
Sept. 22: vs. Utah, 7 p.m. Honda Center
Sept. 24: vs. Kings, 7 p.m., Honda Center
Sept. 27: vs. Kings, 3 p.m., Dignity Health Arena, Bakersfield
Sept. 29: vs. San Jose, 7 p.m. Honda Center
Oct. 1: vs. San Jose, 7 p.m. SAP Center, San Jose
Oct. 4: vs. Kings, 1 p.m., Crypto.com Arena