Alexander: Ducks' rebuilt roster approaches maturity
ANAHEIM - The kids are all right. And they're going to be staying around a while – at least for another playoff round, and who knows beyond that.
The Ducks' rebuild is humming along, in other words. After Thursday night's 5-2 victory over Edmonton wrapped up their first-round series in six games, sent the Oilers home in the first round for the first time in five seasons and – not incidentally – turned Connor McDavid into essentially a non-factor, there's this feeling around Honda Center that anything's possible.
But we know this for sure: These young Ducks didn't flinch as the lights got brighter, the atmosphere got louder and the win-or-go-home pressure became more intense. And this first playoff experience for many of the key pieces of Anaheim's rebuild will be invaluable going forward, beyond immediate results.
"It was an awesome feeling just to make the playoffs," said Troy Terry, an eight-year veteran who broke in with the Ducks in 2017-18 but did not participate in that postseason, the club's last until this year. He had three goals in this series, including one late in the second period Thursday night to give Anaheim a 4-1 lead, and picked up his fourth and fifth assists of the series in Game 6 on Chris Kreider's first-period goal and Leo Carlsson's empty-netter to seal it in the third.
"For me, for the fans, for all of us who have been here, I think after that first game (a 4-3 loss in Edmonton on April 20), even maybe in the second period (of that game) – I don't know, we lost Game 1, but the feeling on the team was, it was our first taste of it and we knew that this series was there for us if we played the right way," Terry added.
A reminder here: Not only was this the Ducks' first playoff series since 2018, but the franchise's first series victory since 2017, when the Ducks defeated Calgary and Edmonton in the first two rounds before losing to Nashville in the Western Conference finals.
The lone Stanley Cup banner in the Honda Center rafters turns 20 next spring, and the task of General Manager Pat Verbeek and Coach Joel Quenneville – as made clear by owner Henry Samueli – is to steer this club toward ultimately competing for a companion banner.
This was a good start. The Ducks faced down some adversity, trailing early in each of the first five games (and overcoming that in three of the five) before Ryan Poehling's fourth goal of the playoffs gave them a 1-0 lead Thursday night. Their special teams were money in this series: eight goals in 16 power plays, including Cutter Gauthier's goal for a 3-1 lead late in the first period, and 10 of 14 penalties killed successfully.
The moment, as it turned out, was not too much for them. They won Game 2 in Edmonton and held serve at home, drawing fuel from the noise and enthusiasm of a fan base that has been waiting a long time for this.
Carlsson said he didn't totally drink in the fans' reaction after his late goal, saying he would probably see it later on his phone. "It's hard to see when you're on the ice," he said. "I can hear but you're so focused so it's hard to take it all in at the moment."
But the Ducks' players were aware that their fans – which Thursday night included a suite-ful of Ducks alumni, including the irrepressible Teemu Selanne, and a group of Angels players that included Mike Trout – had hungered for this for a long time.
"We've had fans that have been super loyal, have always shown up for us and they deserve this," Terry said. "You know, a lot of us live in the Newport area. All of a sudden you're seeing cars with Ducks flags on them everywhere, and you just really start to see what this means to Orange County."
Whatever happens beyond this, whether the journey ends in the next round or further down the line, these are invaluable experiences for a team that is still at the start of the development curve.
There was "a ton" of growth from the start of this series to the end, said defenseman Jackson LaCombe.
"I think the first game, even the first period, we started out a little hesitant," he said. "We were just unsure, kind of seeing what it felt like, and then the second period (of Game 1) we kind of came out and started playing our game. Like Troy said, that's when we started gaining confidence and trust in each other, and I think each game we just got better and better. Maybe we slipped a little bit in Game 5, but I think a lot of us young guys are learning a lot as we go along, and I thought we got better throughout the series."
LaCombe, a third-year player being touted as one of the league's best young defensemen, made his mark in this series along with defense partner Jacob Trouba in helping keep McDavid under wraps. The NHL's best player, limited by an ankle injury suffered in Game 2, had one goal in the series, that in the Ducks' 7-4 victory at home in Game 3, had six assists and was a minus-8 all told. In Game 6, he had one shot in 24:49 of ice time and won two of eight faceoffs.
And yes, McDavid and Leon Draisaitl (who missed the last 14 games of the regular season with the traditional "lower body injury") weren't at full strength. But who at this time of the hockey year isn't physically compromised? The proof generally comes after a team is eliminated and news of specific injuries and upcoming surgeries trickles out.
The Ducks aren't there yet. They took Friday off while awaiting the winner of the Vegas-Utah series. And when the next series begins, they'll try to apply the lessons that they learned in the last one.
"Now we've got a taste of playoff hockey," Quenneville said. "And I think we can feel at this moment that it's so much fun playing games that have the meaning and the building being as loud and excited as it is, and then it seems to grow from this level on.
"Now we get to experience another round, I think this is healthy for us. And we got a young group that still, you don't know how they're gonna play. But you're certainly excited (about) what the upside is."
These experiences will all help. Maybe, even, sooner than we imagined.
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This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 1:37 PM.