The Anaheim Ducks, who have not made the playoffs since 2018, are off to a much better start, especially offensively.
Anaheim, which visits the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night in Sunrise, finished 30th in goals per game last season. That’s the Ducks’ third straight year finishing that poorly or worse on offense.
This season, however, the Ducks enter this week ranked fifth in the NHL with 3.63 goals per game.
“I’m proud of the way we’re trending and building,” said Ducks forward Troy Terry, who has nine points, tied with Leo Carlsson for the team lead.
Terry, 28, has scored at least 20 goals in each of the past four seasons, with a career-high 37 tallies in 2021-2022. He also has one goal in each of his past three games.
Another forward to watch is 19-year-old rookie Beckett Sennecke, who has three goals and two assists in eight games. He was the third overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.
The Ducks, though, have injury concerns. Rugged team captain Radko Gudas, a former Panthers defenseman, missed Anaheim’s previous game, a 4-3 loss at Tampa Bay, due to a lower-body injury. Forward Mikael Granlund missed a majority of that same game, also due to a lower-body injury.
Granlund was Anaheim’s big free-agent signing this past summer.
In addition, former Rangers star forward Chris Kreider missed the Tampa Bay game due to illness. He could give the Ducks a boost in front of the net if he returns on Tuesday.
Overall, there’s a feeling that the Ducks – who made a 21-point improvement last season, the largest in the Western Conference – could soar now that they have hired former Panthers coach Joel Quenneville, who won three Stanley Cup titles in Chicago.
Of course, the Panthers are the two-time reigning Stanley Cup champs.
Florida is 4-1-0 at home this season, including its most recent performance, a 3-0 win over Vegas.
Sergei Bobrovsky earned his first shutout of the season and the 50th of his impressive NHL career in that game.
“We played our game – hard forecheck, and our offense did a good job of keeping the puck in their end,” said Bobrovsky, who is just the eighth goalie born outside of North America to reach 50 shutouts. “It was a good game, and we beat a good team. Now we have to reset and build from this.”
The Panthers, however, are dealing with significant issues as well with forwards Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Tomas Nosek as well as defenseman Dmitry Kulikov are all on injured reserve.
Barkov is one of the best two-way forwards in the league. Tkachuk is the other major loss as he provides scoring and also the edge that the Panthers lacked before acquiring him and becoming champions.
Without those two players this season, the Panthers rank just 29th in scoring (2.50). That’s down from last season, when they ranked 15th in the league (3.00).
Because of that drop in offense, the Panthers are relying even more on Bobrovsky, 37, who is 5-3-0 with a .903 save percentage and a 2.28 goals-against average.
Brad Marchand, also 37, leads the Panthers in goals (five) and assists (six).
Anaheim is likely to start goalie Lukas Dostal (2-3-1, .899 SP, 3.02 GAA).
