The Ducks open training camp Friday with more questions than answers and plenty of reasons to believe their Stanley Cup championship window has slammed shut on their fingers. The Ducks are said to be too old, too slow and too resistant to change to be contenders.
Training camp will reveal whether they’ve regained their health and altered their style of play sufficiently to remain a playoff-caliber team. It’s not as if they weren’t aware of their shortcomings during and after an injury-riddled 2017-18 season ended with a first-round playoff defeat.
“Adapt or die” might as well be the Ducks’ mantra for the upcoming season.
Here are five burning questions going into training camp:
Is right wing Patrick Eaves healthy?
Illness and injury limited Eaves to only two games last season. He has long since recovered from a post-viral infection that sidelined him at the outset of 2017-18. He’s still not fully recovered from shoulder surgery after he was injured during a workout last season. He and Ducks general manager Bob Murray had an extended conversation last week and it’s expected that Eaves will skate with his teammates to start training camp but not take contact. If all goes as planned, Eaves will join the physical play, and if that works without a setback, then he could play in one of the Ducks’ final exhibition games. The addition of a healthy Eaves would be like adding a free agent in many regards.
Will center Ryan Kesler play this season?
There was plenty of offseason chatter that Kesler might sit out the season in order to recover more fully from complications from hip surgery performed in the summer of 2017. The Ducks were eager to see him during training camp in order to gauge his fitness and effectiveness. Kesler seemed eager to get camp started, snark-tweeting at Nashville’s Ryan Johansen, a rival from past playoff confrontations, “How’s the summer training going? Want to meet me in the streets before we get going on the ice?” Kesler scored eight goals and 14 points in 44 games after returning to the lineup in 2017-18. He wasn’t effective and appeared to be skating on one leg, especially during the playoffs.
Can Corey Perry regain his scoring touch?
Perry was never known as an exceptional skater, even when he led the NHL with 50 goals and was named the league’s MVP in 2010-11. But his lack of speed has been evident the past two seasons, when his production dropped from 34 goals in 2015-16 to 19 in 2016-17 and then to 17 last season. Perry’s position on the top line alongside center Ryan Getzlaf and left wing Rickard Rakell could be at stake. Perry has three seasons and more than $25 million remaining on the eight-season, $69-million contract he signed in 2013. That’s a lot of money for a 33-year-old player who could be demoted to the third or fourth line if he doesn’t produce as anticipated or required to start the season.
How will the team pick up the tempo?
Murray’s mandate to the coaching staff is to pick up the pace. The Ducks seemed caught in a station-to-station style of play that was easy to defend and made scoring difficult at times. Cycling the puck and/or dumping-and-chasing it down the ice is no longer en vogue, and Murray demanded more quick passing and a higher tempo from the Ducks for 2018-19. It will be interesting, and probably entertaining, to see how the Ducks go about it. Murray wants his defensemen looking up ice, rather than making side-to-side passes, for starters. It will be Coach Randy Carlyle’s assignment to change the game plan and for the players to make it happen. If it doesn’t happen, changes could be in the making.
Which prospect(s) could make the roster?
The Ducks’ future was on display during the just-completed Rookie Faceoff in Las Vegas, and it is fast-paced and skillful. The Ducks’ top rookie line of Max Comtois, Sam Steel and Troy Terry created scoring chances and made smart plays with the puck on nearly every shift. They could not be contained by their peers during one-sided victories over the Kings, Colorado Avalanche and Arizona Coyotes. Those three and defensemen Jacob Larsson and Marcus Pettersson could challenge the veteran-laden Ducks for spots on the opening night roster Oct. 3. Pettersson might have the edge on all the others after he played 22 games last season with the Ducks, and four more in the playoffs.
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