The Anaheim Ducks are ten games out of 82 into their transitional 2025-26 season, a season where the stated goal has been and remains to make the 2026 NHL playoffs. A new head coach, along with his new staff, has been implemented, as have brand new play-styles and systems.
They boast a 6-3-1 record, and through the vast assortment of highlights and areas that need improvement, some encouraging and concerning trends have emerged, and the numbers, both traditional and underlying, bear out as much. Ten games remains a relatively small sample size, and things can change in either direction very quickly. It’s also pushing the limits for a “grace period” that is naturally given to teams that made wholesale changes in the offseason, as the Ducks had in the summer of 2025.
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Here are ten statistics that tell the story of the first ten games of the Ducks’ 2025-26 season:
The idea from this article was borrowed directly from Vince Mercogliano of "The Athletic"
Team: 44.51xGF% (28th in NHL)
Ten games into the season is where 5v5 expected goals numbers start to matter. The good news is that the Ducks are generating 2.75xGF/60 minutes at 5v5 (12th in the NHL), a sizable improvement over the last two seasons (2.34xGF/60). The bad news is they’re allowing a whopping 3.42xGA/60 (32nd in the NHL), way up from the 2.8xGA/60 they surrendered in the last two seasons combined.
We’re still just ten games into the season, the Ducks are playing high-event hockey, and these numbers could be attributed to a combination of adjusting to new systems, new personnel, injury to key roster players, and the line/pair shuffling that ensues. The defensive mistakes reflect on-ice mental/judgement errors, and are, in theory, easily correctable (and some have already seemingly been corrected). However, if not coached out of them, outscoring these issues won’t be sustainable over the course of 82 games.
Lukas Dostal: 7.2 Goals Saved Above Expected (6th in NHL)
Fresh off a brand new long-term contract, the underlying numbers suggest that Dostal, as he did along with John Gibson a season ago, has put the Ducks on his back through a difficult defensive stretch to begin the 2025-26 season. He’s started eight of the Ducks’ ten games, has posted a 4-3-1 record, and a .909 SV%.
Dostal has been every bit as advertised and every bit worth his new cap hit to this point in the season. His trademark puck-tracking skills and knowledge of angles are a seemingly perfect marriage with the Ducks' new defensive zone coverage system, as he’s stated the shots he sees are more predictable. This has led to him further developing other aspects of his game, like rebound control and game management.
Leo Carlsson: 1.5 Points/Game (T-6th in NHL)
Carlsson's anticipated breakout is upon us. As has been the case with several of today's top European NHL superstars (Aleksander Barkov, Nikita Kucherov, David Pastrnak, Leon Draisaitl), 100-150 games seems to be how long it takes some players to learn, adjust, and adapt their games to the NHL and translate the aspects that made them so successful prior to the highest level of the sport.
What’s even more encouraging is the fact that Carlsson still has a long way to go, and there are several areas in his game he can further refine. He’s one of six U20 players in the last 30 years to begin a season with 15 points in the first ten games, joining Macklin Celebrini (2025-26), Steven Stamkos (2010-11), Sidney Crosby (2006-07), Eric Staal (2005-06), and Ilya Kovalchuk (2003-04). He is the Ducks’ franchise player now and for the foreseeable future.
Blueline: 21 Points from Defensemen
The Ducks deploy a dynamic and involved blueline corps that features the explosive Olen Zellweger, the crafty Pavel Mintyukov, and the poised $9 million AAV (contract kicks in next season) Jackson LaCombe. However, the two d-men leading the Ducks' blueline from a production perspective at this point in the season are none other than Jacob Trouba and Drew Helleson, each totaling six points (2-4=6) in ten games.
The pessimistic angle is to point out how discouraging it is for the youngest, most dynamic offensive talents on the Ducks’ blueline (LaCombe, Zellweger, Mintyukov) to have only managed seven assists between them through the first eighth of the season. The optimistic angle is to be encouraged by the Ducks' results despite the lack of production from the blueline, in hopes that it will increase as the season goes on, especially given how Zellweger, in particular, is driving offense from his position.
Jackson LaCombe: 25:27 TOI/G (T-4th in NHL)
Speaking of $9 million defenseman LaCombe, though the production hasn’t been desirable from a #1 defenseman, he’s deployed a sometimes poised/sometimes casual play style and is eating up minutes at an impressive clip in all situations. He’s leading all Ducks players by a wide margin in TOI, his 3:23 shorthanded TOI/G is 16th in the NHL, and his 4:06 TOI/G on the power play is 34th.
His defensive fundamentals and habits have been excellent, with hiccups occurring on occasion, and his outlet reliability on breakouts has become a staple of how the Ducks build rush chances when he is on the ice.
Cutter Gauthier: 5.1 Shots/Game (1st in NHL)
Gauthier is a shooter; he's always been a shooter, and the Ducks brought him in almost two years ago to be a shooter. He’s attempted 80 shots in ten games, with 51 of them registering as shots on goal, and six of them finding the back of the net.
His 26.05 shot attempts per 60 minutes is second in the NHL, and his 16.6 shots/60 is first. With his most consistent linemates being Mason McTavish, who’s been the key driver and playmaker on that line, and rookie Beckett Sennecke, Gauthier is creating shots for himself and is finding the quiet ice to present himself as a dangerous option. Perhaps the shot selection leaves something to be desired, but any coach will say they’d rather have to rein a player in than have to motivate them to maximize their potential.
Frank Vatrano: 0 Goals
Vatrano is in year one of a three-year contract extension that he was awarded in Jan. that carries a $6 million annual salary, but a $4.57 million cap hit. He scored 22, 37, and 21 goals in his first three years in a Ducks sweater and averaged 16:41, 18:21, and 17:33 TOI/G in those years, respectively. Through ten games in 2025-26, he has only managed one assist and has seen his TOI drop to 12:42/G.
He’s attempted 36 shots, and 22 of them have registered on net. His shot rate (10.38/60 minutes) and shot attempt (17.01/60 minutes) rate have remained consistent with his career averages, and he’s a career 10.4% shooter. Even if his role has been minimized and he’s having a difficult time adjusting to new systems, linemates, etc., he can still be expected to rack up a few more goals in the near future.
Beckett Sennecke: 10 Games Played
Sennecke has played in all ten of the Ducks' games to start the 2025-26 season. His tenth game marked the start of his three-year entry-level contract. His career has officially begun. He’s scored five points (3-2=5) through ten games, looking every bit as talented as advertised when the Ducks selected him third overall in June of 2024.
However, he also looks every bit as volatile as his age (19) and play style would suggest. His puck management, wall play, and defensive habits were all questioned heading into the season. Though he’s done well to clean up a lot of the defensive and battle issues in recent games, the puck management ones remain. The points haven’t been there in his last four games, but his details have. The front office and coaching staff seem willing to let him take his lumps and work out the kinks in his game, as the team results have been there.
His next notable game from a long-term perspective will be his 40th on the roster, after which his first accrued year will be in the books, starting the clock on his RFA/UFA years. Unless he shows a gargantuan dip in his play and/or the team starts losing as a result of his deployment, it can be expected that he’ll be on the Ducks roster for at least the next 30 games.
Gauthier-McTavish-Sennecke: 4.25 xGF/60 (5th in NHL) (min. 60 minutes)
I’ve mentioned both Gauthier and Sennecke above, in detail. They’re two-thirds of Anaheim’s “Kid Line”: the Ducks’ most consistent line in terms of time spent together. The third piece of that puzzle, and driver, is Mason McTavish; perhaps the Ducks' best, most impactful, and/or complete player through the first ten games of the season.
The Kid Line has accounted for 60.4% of the expected goals share in their 90.5 minutes together this season. McTavish has been as diligent as he’s ever been in the defensive zone, he’s cleverly built plays in transition, and he's elevated his playmaking talents to an elite level. He’s taken on a leadership role on one of the NHL’s top offensive lines and is earning every bit of his $7 million AAV this season, a deal that’s looking like a real bargain thus far.
Zellweger-Trouba: 54.6% xGF (24th in NHL) (min. 60 minutes)
The blueline’s counterpart to the “Kid Line” up front has been the pair of Olen Zellweger and Jacob Trouba through the first stretch of the season. They’ve accounted for 3.72 xGF/60 (7th in NHL) and 3.09 xGA/60 (73rd in NHL), so they’re a very high-event pair. On paper, they fit the mold of “big, stay-at-home defender/small, skilled, offensive defenseman,” but that underrates both Zellweger’s defensive progression and Trouba’s offensive impact.
They’ve found a quality interplay between them, becoming an impressive regroup and breakout pair who activate at will from the offensive blueline. They’re a fire wagon defensive pair that epitomizes the Ducks as a whole through the first ten games of the 2025-26 season.
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