Are Ducks ready to take leap behind burgeoning young stars?

One rule that’s a good guideline for every NHL team, but especially for those clubs trying to make a leap: Don’t bury yourself early.

The Anaheim Ducks entered this season with a clear desire to push about 15 points up the ladder and become a true contender for a playoff spot. They began the year with seven of nine contests away from home, and while the Ducks weren’t in serious trouble after winning just two of their first five games, the potential to slide was there.

That’s when they slammed both webbed feet on the brakes.

With their latest win, a 4-1 triumph Sunday night over Metropolitan Division-leading New Jersey Devils, Anaheim has won three straight outings and five of its past six. The Ducks’ .682 points percentage after 11 games is tied for the best mark in the Pacific Division with the Vegas Golden Knights.

While the club’s underlying numbers may offer a hint of caution — Anaheim is 27th in expected goals percentage and 10th in PDO — you’d have to bump your head pretty hard while looking under the hood to miss all the good stuff going on with this team.

Leo Carlsson, the second-overall pick in 2023, is emerging as a stud No. 1 centre. The 20-year-old Swede had a goal and three assists in Anaheim’s first win of the weekend — a 5-2 triumph over Detroit Friday night — and after chipping in an apple against the Devils, Carlsson has points in six straight contests while posting 16 points in 11 games overall this season.

The win over Jersey was also punctuated by goals from two other burgeoning young stars. Cutter Gauthier — who closed last season with 22 points in 27 games and finished fifth in Calder Trophy voting — sniped his seventh of the year versus the Devils, while Beckett Sennecke — one of four recent top-five picks on the roster with Gauthier, Carlsson and Mason McTavish — posted a goal and an assist in the victory, and is up to seven points in 11 games as a 19-year-old rookie.

At the other end of the age spectrum, two New York Rangers castoffs have found new life in Orange County. Chris Krieder is skating beside Carlsson on the top line and he scored against both Detroit and New Jersey on the weekend, sliding one into an empty net on Sunday for his sixth tally of the season in just seven outings. 

On the back end, Jacob Trouba — traded to Anaheim from the Rangers 10 months ago — is playing 21:39 per game on the Ducks’ second pair, averaging more ice time per game than everyone in Anaheim save Jackson LaCombe (25:09).

Behind it all, Lukas Dostal is showing he can be the backbone of this club. The 25-year-old Czech leads the league with 11.1 goals saved above expected (per Moneypuck), and in his past five outings, Dostal is 4-1-0 with a .930 save percentage.

To be sure, there’s a long way to go for Anaheim before it can snap a streak of seven seasons outside the playoffs. The Ducks, though, have already taken a significant step simply by ensuring their (very) early-season results are something that will ultimately work in their favour. 

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Weekend Takeaways

• The NHL goals leader column is a wild, fun place right now. At the top stand Jack Hughes and Nathan MacKinnon — two first-overall picks currently sitting on 10 goals — along with bona fide sniper Cole Caufield. After that, six other players are within one strike with nine goals. They include Kiefer Sherwood, who has never posted a 20-goal season; Martin Necas, who’s never registered a 30-goal season; Morgan Geekie, who had 39 career goals in four-plus seasons before scoring 33 last year; Pavel Dorofeyev, who officially looks like a third-round steal after scoring 35 last year and Sidney Crosby, who’s established himself as a decent hockey player, but is 38 years old and scoring at a 57-goal pace. 

• Another guy with nine goals is Mark Scheifele of the Winnipeg Jets. He also happens to lead the league with 20 points after posting two assists in Saturday’s 5-2 win over Crosby and the Penguins. Scheifele scoring and Winnipeg winning are two things that have become routine in the NHL, but let’s zoom out for a second to appreciate both. We all knew the Jets would be hard-pressed to repeat as Presidents’ Trophy champs again this year, and that the squad had virtually no chance of repeating the record-breaking start it had last year when it won 15 of its first 16 games. They may not be on a run like that, but let’s not sleep on the fact we’re now into November and, surprise-surprise, the Jets are tied for the best points percentage in the league (.750) with the Montreal Canadiens. (OK, it’s a surprise they’re tied with the Canadiens, but you get the point). Oh, by the way, Winnipeg has done all this without three important players — captain Adam Lowry, second-liner Cole Perfetti and top-4 defenceman Dylan Samberg — skating a single shift this year.

Meanwhile, Scheifele looks as though he could blow right past last year’s career-best 87 points with the wicked pace he’s on. 

Sure, the Jets’ underlying numbers aren’t great, but — on balance — this team has done fantastic work to build the record it has, especially with three key injuries. 

Red and White Power Rankings

1. Winnipeg Jets (9-3-0): The happiest Jet on Saturday night was surely Brad Lambert after he scored his first NHL goal. The 2022 first-rounder did a nice job of forcing a neutral-zone turnover, then getting himself back in front of the net to jam home a loose puck for a tally he’ll never forget. 

2. Montreal Canadiens (9-3-0): A little under the radar, Alex Newhook has had a wonderful start to the season. The 24-year-old winger scored the OT winner versus Ottawa on Saturday and is up to five goals and nine points in a dozen games this year. 

3. Edmonton Oilers (6-4-3): After grabbing the extra point in a 3-2 OT win over Chicago in Edmonton on Saturday, the Oilers will play nine of their next 11 away from home, beginning Monday night in St. Louis. 

4. Toronto Maple Leafs (6-5-1): You never want to see a player carted off the ice on a stretcher, as Leafs D-man Chris Tanev was in Philadelphia Saturday night. Thankfully, coach Craig Berube said on Sunday that Tanev had been released from the hospital and added, “I think he’ll be all right.”  Of course, Tanev — now on injured reserve — has already been forced out of a couple games, and any more time the steady defender has to miss is bad news for Toronto. 

5. Ottawa Senators (6-5-2): Defenceman Artem Zub is getting on the scoresheet consistently to begin the year. His assist in Montreal on Saturday marked his third straight game with a point, and Zub — whose career high is 25 points — is up to nine points in 13 outings this year. 

6. Vancouver Canucks (6-7-0): With Saturday’s 5-2 setback in Minny, the Canucks have now gone seven games without a 60-minute win. 

7. Calgary Flames (3-9-2): Nazem Kadri will play career game No. 1,000 on Wednesday versus Columbus. How many more will he play in a Flames uniform after that if the club’s fortunes don’t turn around fast?

The Week Ahead

• Tuesday brings a couple homecomings, as JJ Peterka will be back in Buffalo as a member of the Utah Mammoth, while K’Andre Miller will face his old Rangers teammates in Madison Square Garden when the Carolina Hurricanes invade. 

• B.C. boy Connor Bedard will be playing in his home province on Wednesday when the Hawks are in Vancouver to battle the Canucks. 

• Two teams that have come flying out of the gate, the Habs and Devils, will clash in New Jersey on Thursday in what should be a high-speed, ultra-fun affair. 

That same night, we’ll get the first clash of the year between Sidney Crosby’s Penguins and Alex Ovechkin’s Caps. How many people thought Crosby would be outscoring Ovi 9-2 in the first week of November?

• Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Weekend is coming up in Toronto. Women’s hockey legends Jennifer Botterill and Brianna Decker are both set to be honoured, while top-flight NHLers Zdeno Chara, Joe Thornton, Duncan Keith and Alex Mogilny will enter the Hall. In the builder category, longtime Boston University coach Jack Parker is being inducted, as is Danièle Sauvageau, who coached Canada’s women to their first Olympic gold medal in 2002 at the Salt Lake City Games. 

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