The Youth Bet Was Always Risky. Anaheim Just Made It Riskier.

The number that should be making Ducks fans uncomfortable this September isn't the $18 million per year committed to Leo Carlsson, or even the five-to-six months Troy Terry will spend rehabbing a hip before he skates competitively again. It's 67. That's the percentage of one-goal games Anaheim won last season — 24 of 36 — a rate that flattered a roster finishing 43-39 and missing the playoffs anyway. That variance edge is gone. It was always going to regress. And the team that benefited from it just got meaningfully thinner.

Count what's walked out the door since May. Mason McTavish, who contributed 29 points from the second-line center position, is in St. Louis. Olen Zellweger, one of the more productive defensemen on a back end that was already leaking badly, is in Buffalo. Chris Kreider cleared waivers Wednesday and is now an unrestricted free agent, taking 25 points and whatever veteran presence he provided out of a forward group that badly needed both. Three of the team's top ten point producers from last season are gone, and the one still technically on the roster — Terry, who led the team with 33 assists — is recovering from labral surgery and won't be available at the start of 2026-27. What's been added in return is a pair of draft picks, an AHL forward in Sean Farrell, a depth signing in AJ Greer, and a first-round pick in Nikita Klepov who has yet to play an NHL game.

The defensive picture is what concerns me most heading into next season. The Ducks allowed 4.1 goals per game over their final 10 games last year — a collapse of nearly a full goal per game from the pace they'd maintained across the prior 20. That stretch exposed a back end without the depth to absorb pressure, and the response this offseason was to subtract Zellweger rather than add anyone of consequence. Jackson LaCombe logged over 24 minutes a night and earned recognition as one of the better young defensemen in the league. But the evidence from last April and May was that this group cracks under sustained load. Pavel Mintyukov's ice time jumped nearly five minutes per game in that final stretch — management leaning hard on a young defenseman precisely when the wheels were coming off. That pattern doesn't resolve itself by shedding another piece from the blue line.

Carlsson and Gauthier are real. That part isn't in dispute. Carlsson's 48 points in 49 games at 21 years old is the kind of production that earns a franchise-level commitment, and the five-year match of Philadelphia's offer sheet reflects that correctly. Gauthier's 42-point sophomore season put him in credible company among the league's better young wingers. But Gauthier also converted just 5.3% of his shots over the final 10 games of last season — two goals on 38 attempts — and the broader offensive collapse that accompanied Anaheim's defensive meltdown raises a real question about how much of his early-season production was sustainable and how much rode on favorable variance that won't repeat. Two cornerstones don't build a roster; they build a foundation that still needs a second and third floor.

My read is this: the Ducks have made a coherent long-term bet, and Carlsson's extension is the right anchor for it. But the margin for error on that bet just narrowed considerably. A roster this thin, entering a season without its leading assist man for an indeterminate stretch, with a defense that demonstrably couldn't hold up when it mattered, is not a team that can afford another 2-8 finish to a season. The close-game luck that papered over those cracks in 2025-26 won't be there to bail them out again. What happens when Carlsson and Gauthier hit a wall — as young players do — and there's no one behind them capable of carrying a week? That question had a partial answer last year. This year, it has even less of one.