The Anaheim Ducks Frank Vatrano made the best of his opportunity in Orange County to become an All-Star during the 2023-24 NHL season. He'd set himself apart from a team that was struggling in the beginning of its rebuild, scoring 37 goals and 60 points playing a full 82-game season. It wasn't long before the Ducks found themselves relying on his veteran presence in the lineup for secondary scoring as young talent poured into the lineup, including Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gau...
When the New York Rangers decided it was time to move on from their captain, Jacob Trouba, midway through the 2024-25 season, it was the Anaheim Ducks' gain. Adding a veteran leader with a punishing physical presence to their blueline turned out to be the next step in the team launching itself out of its rebuild and into serious playoff contention. But after a year and a half there, Trouba is now an unrestricted free agent. He's coming off an $8 million AAV over the past seven years, and...
The dust is still settling on the Penguins’ season. Kyle Dubas gave his end of season press conference last week and the team will be mostly inactive until the end of June. They might have the occasional re-signing, like recent moves to bring back Connor Dewar and Ilya Solovyov in the short-term but the rhythm […]
The Anaheim Ducks will be a team to watch this offseason as general manager Pat Verbeek is open for business. The Ducks smashed expectations this season, but that won't slow Verbeek down at all this summer as he looks to upgrade his roster. There's one player who is expected to be involved in any big move and that's Mason McTavish. The 23-year-old forward just started a long-term extension with the team that pays him $7 million AAV through the 2031 season, but it's become obvious throughout th...
The Edmonton Oilers’ first-round exit to the Anaheim Ducks was certainly disappointing, but I recently wrote that there were some silver linings to an otherwise unfulfilled season. One of them was the growth of Vasily Podkolzin. Podkolzin was a physical menace in the regular season, leading the team with 242 hits and six fights, both…
After seven consecutive seasons of missing the playoffs, the Ducks got back to the postseason this year and made quite the impression, coming within two wins of the Conference Final.
Jay Woodcroft spent the 2025-26 season as an assistant coach under Joel Quenneville in Anaheim, watched the Ducks upset the Edmonton Oilers in six games in the first round of the playoffs, and is now entering his third consecutive summer of head coaching interviews.
Per Eric Stephens of The Athletic , Woodcroft is expected to pursue multiple head coaching opportunities this offseason, with Ducks GM Pat Verbeek making clear he will not stand in his way.
"I would never hold a coach back from...
The Anaheim Ducks succumbed to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 Thursday night, and their season is done. But what a season it was, as they boldly emerged from their more-than-half-decade-long rebuild with a run to the playoffs for the first time in eight years, and the second round, no less. But they won't be resting on their laurels. Eric Stephens writes in The Athletic that the next step could be a 'franchise-altering' move this summer, as they hope to take yet another big leap.&nbs...
The Vegas Golden Knights have managed to get by without a top-line forward in Mark Stone the past couple of games. Now they'll have to go into Game 6 of their series with the Anaheim Ducks without a top-four defenseman in Brayden McNabb. He's been suspended by the NHL for one game for driving Anaheim Ducks forward Ryan Poehling into the boards, with the puck nowhere near him. Brayden McNabb has been SUSPENDED for Game 6 as a result of this hit on Ryan Poehling during Game 5 pic.twitter.c...
The Oilers are heading into their most important summer in ages, and while it was always going to be weird and messy, I’m not sure anyone expected it to start with a leak that turned into a fork in the road. After getting bounced by the Anaheim Ducks in six games after a season of…
The Edmonton Oilers lost to the Anaheim Ducks in six games in the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the organizational autopsy that followed has identified two recurring problems that GM Stan Bowman needs to solve this summer.
The blue line needs a right-shot defenseman with size, and the goaltending needs an answer beyond the current group.
Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Sun identified two trade targets he believes Bowman should pursue to address both.
Michael Kesselring -...
Pavel Dorofeyev roofed the rebound of Jack Eichel’s shot for his second goal of the game 4:10 into overtime to lift the Vegas Golden Knights to a 3-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks in Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday. Tomas Hertl had a goal and an assist, and Carter Hart finished with 34 saves for Vegas, who took a three games to two lead in the series. Beckett Sennecke scored in his fourth straight game of the series, and Olen Zellweger tied it for the Ducks with 3:05 remaining in regulati...
The first step in any successful offseason is to properly identify where things went wrong. For the Edmonton Oilers, there’s a lot you can point to. Whether you’re discussing goaltending, defence, or special teams, none of it was up to snuff in their first-round series against the Anaheim Ducks. Now that the dust has settled,…
It’s been a back-and-forth battle between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Anaheim Ducks in the second round of the 2026 NHL playoffs. The Ducks have taken the hockey world by surprise this playoffs, eliminating the Edmonton Oilers in a six-game series. Now, they are going toe-to-toe with the Pacific Division champions, and the series…
Mitch Marner registered a natural hat trick and set up Brayden McNabb’s short-handed goal as the Vegas Golden Knights fricasseed the Anaheim Ducks 6-2 in Game 3 at Honda Center on Friday. It was the first hat trick of Marner’s postseason career. Shea Theodore and Brett Howden each had a goal and an assist, and Carter Hart made 31 stops for the Golden Knights, who took a two to one lead in the series. Beckett Sennecke and Chris Kreider scored the goals for Anaheim.
Alex Newhook notched a p...
While it took me some time to recover from the heartbreaking loss to the Anaheim Ducks in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, I finally sat down to write about my beloved Edmonton Oilers. This was my first piece for Oilersnation, and I genuinely believed that this version of the team was destined…
The Edmonton Oilers went to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals in 2024 and 2025.
This year they lost to the Anaheim Ducks in six games.
The fallout from that result has been significant, and the question of whether Kris Knoblauch will coach the Oilers next season is now very much open.
GM Stan Bowman addressed the media Saturday morning at Rogers Place for a 30-plus-minute exit interview and declined to guarantee his coach's future in any meaningful way.
"When you don't have success, I th...
As the NHL’s second round gets off and running, don’t overlook the OHL finals, which will feature a couple of prospects who could be parts of the Islanders’ future. Meanwhile, post-season post-mortems continue in Canada’s top self-loathing hockey capitals. Islanders News NHL Playoffs Monday night in the playoffs, Vegas took Game 1 over the Ducks […]
It was a strange feeling this past weekend, going around town at the beginning of May and not seeing people wearing their finest Edmonton Oilers threads, or a single Oilers car flag on passing cars, at least from what I saw. The Oilers were ousted by the Anaheim Ducks in the first round, their earliest…
In the Edmonton Oilers’ final season before Connor McDavid turns 30 years old, they were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Anaheim Ducks. In general, it was a mediocre season for the team all year long. As McDavid put it, they were an “average team with high expectations.” Plenty of blame…
Last Saturday, after the Game 3 loss against the Ducks, Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch was asked a question about his team’s inconsistent performance. Despite the players saying the right things and despite the Ducks being a beatable opponent, this interaction told me this team wasn’t likely to come back. Mark Spector: “It seems…
It’s not too often we can say that Connor McDavid just “didn’t have it.” We’ll hear soon about the injuries he was fighting through against the Anaheim Ducks in full detail, but with a team-worst -8 in the series, and with the Edmonton Oilers falling to the Ducks in six games for their first first-round…
One NHL insider believes the Edmonton Oilers will be “bold” this offseason. David Pagnotta joined The Sheet with Jeff Marek on Friday, the morning after the Oilers season came to an end in Game 6 against the Anaheim Ducks. It was a disappointing finish to the season, and with Connor McDavid’s two-year extension about to begin…
The Edmonton Oilers handled their business to stave off elimination on Tuesday, but with Game 6 happening on the road, it was going to take an even better effort if they were going to do it again. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a better effort. Not even close. Instead, the Anaheim Ducks basically controlled the game…
The Edmonton Oilers were outmatched by the Anaheim Ducks in six games, and after going to the Stanley Cup Final two years in a row, the Oil are out in the first round. There's going to be significant changes to the roster this offseason, as Stan Bowman has no choice but to shuffle things up, or else Connor McDavid is going to demand out, and the ship will then sink. Bowman made several moves throughout the regular season, but unfortunately, wasn't able to address the areas of the team that sto...