IRVINE –– The Ducks have undergone a severe roster transformation under General Manager Pat Verbeek, having reconfigured their leadership group and, for a second time under Verbeek, their coaching staff as well.
Under new coach Joel Quenneville, a four-time Stanley Cup champion, will operate Jay Woodcroft, Ryan McGill and Andrew Brewer. Woodcroft took the Edmonton Oilers to a conference finals series and McGill has led consistently strong penalty-kill units in Toronto and New Jersey.
Yet as the Ducks have proven across seven futile seasons in which they only sniffed .500 once, let alone pushed for the playoffs, change does not always amount to improvement. Here are four burning questions that could contribute to their success or failure in 2025-26.
Whose voice resonates in the room?
The Ducks have had near total turnover under Verbeek, with only a handful of players remaining in the organization from when he took over in the middle of the 2021-22 season. That means there are also no lingering links to the prosperity of the 2010s following the trade of Cam Fowler to St. Louis last season and John Gibson’s being dealt to Detroit this past summer. Trevor Zegras was also shipped to Philadelphia, and while he was a younger player, his popularity and influence in the room were palpable.
Radko Gudas returns as captain and Jacob Trouba, a former captain and Mark Messier Leadership Award winner, will be in the Ducks’ midst again. But both defensemen are in the final year of their contracts, with several prospects in the on-deck circle. Leadership roles remained fluid ahead of Thursday’s opener.
“It happened quick. I’ve played with a lot of great people here, but we’ve brought a lot of new guys in,” said the longest-tenured Duck, Troy Terry. “It’s a little weird, a lot of the guys, well, all of them, that I came in here with have moved on. It is sort of a weird feeling, but I’m super excited about the new guys we got and the direction. It feels like a new day with a new path for us this year.”
How long will Beckett Sennecke stick around?
Sennecke went third overall in 2024 and looked the part of a lottery pick in his “draft-plus-one” season. Where he looked less advanced was in rookie, development and training camps. His hands and instincts near the net were more than adequate, but the earlier parts of his progressions and his overall game underwhelmed.
Yet Sennecke was not returned to his junior team, instead finishing the preseason on the fourth line and starting the regular season as a member of the parent club. Players like Seattle’s Shane Wright, whom the Ducks will see in their season opener Thursday, and the Ducks’ own Tristan Luneau started on plans that spread them between the NHL, AHL, Team Canada and the junior ranks. Fellow top-three pick Leo Carlsson spent his first season with the Ducks entirely, but with a carefully managed workload.
“(The fourth line) is likely where (Sennecke) is gonna be,” Quenneville said. “I see him being like a wild card where we can use him in all situations and he can play with anybody. You see him playing in that role and on that line, you’d think that he’s not going to get enough ice time. I still think that he’s useful in other ways, where he plays with top players, is a threat and is productive as well.”
Can special teams improve?
Quenneville described both the penalty kill (McGill’s system) and power play (Woodcroft’s domain) as “a work in progress” during the preseason. He emphasized not only better defending on the PK but also better discipline to avert its constant deployment. On the power play, he said finding the right personnel was not only an immediate focus, but one that would persist across the entire season.
The problems are both dire and longstanding. Last season, special teams offset any even-strength progress under Greg Cronin and undermined the stellar play of goalie Lukáš Dostál, who returned with a new five-year deal and a handsome raise. But the Ducks were also tied for the worst penalty kill in the NHL over the span of their seven-season absence from the playoffs and they sat 0.1% away from the same ignominious distinction on the power play. Compounding matters, they’ve been the most penalized team per 60 minutes in the NHL during that same stretch.
“We’re spending a lot of time on (the penalty kill). We’re doing a lot of talking about different situations, recognizing entries, recognizing pressure points and recognizing where we all go … we know we have to be better in that area,” Quenneville said.
What can the new vets bring to the table?
The Ducks made their biggest free-agent signing in recent memory with Mikael Granlund, 33, and got another reputed attacker via trade in Chris Kreider, 34. Both players are candidates to represent Finland and the United States, respectively, at the upcoming Olympics, just as they did at last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off.
With two years left on Kreider’s contract and Granlund signing a three-year pact, these are bridge players expected to make an immediate impact. Granlund’s statistical profile has been trending positively as he left both personal and professional tumult behind to accumulate 126 points over the past two campaigns. Kreider strung together the three best efforts of his career prior to last season, when he had his weakest overall output to date.
“I feel like my best hockey is ahead of me. We’ve certainly played a lot of hockey the last few years, and I’ve just had some really unfortunate injuries, a couple of which I probably shouldn’t have tried to play through, but that’s just something that’s been ingrained in me going back to 2014,” said Kreider, who was a major contributor to the New York Rangers’ run to the Stanley Cup Final that season.