The upstart Anaheim Ducks overachieved out of the gate this season in eye-popping fashion.
Anaheim was 11-3-1 through its first 15 games, led the NHL in scoring (4.13 goals per game) at that mark and perhaps most shockingly, Ducks 21-year-old forward Leo Carlsson was sitting second in league scoring with 10 goals and 25 points to start the season.
It was a script particularly befitting the club’s Disney roots. But the Ducks’ Cinderella story has taken a Maleficent-like turn.
Anaheim’s regression was slow at first — a teeter-totter of wins and losses, noticeably fewer goals going in per game — and then all too quickly they were in 18-wheeler-off-a-cliff territory.
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How bad has it been?
The Ducks hold the league’s worst record since Dec. 16 (1-9-2), are 25th in scoring (2.67 goals per game) and Carlsson? He’s got two goals and six points in his past 15 games. His most recent marker — in Anaheim’s 5-3 loss to Buffalo on Saturday — came after a 12-game goal drought that produced only three assists.
Carlsson’s ghosting the scoresheet has not only been bad news for him: It’s downright disastrous for the Ducks. That’s just how valuable Carlsson, already a top-six pivot for Anaheim, has been. And his coach isn’t afraid to say it.
“When we were riding [high] early and you ask, what’s the reason? Leo’s name comes first,” Joel Quenneville said. “There’s support all over for him in getting back. We need him to be Leo.”
Carlsson hardly needs to hear the message. He was perplexed by the sudden lack of scoring touch, but developed a theory about why he’d hit a wall. It’s similar to what the Ducks have experienced at large; Anaheim was on the right side of extra time to open the season, with eight overtime or shootout wins through early December.
Their luck ran out in that respect — and while Carlsson enjoyed his individual hot streak, it too was perhaps not destined to last.
“Everything just happened to go my way in the beginning, I think,” Carlsson said. “I played good, but also, it’s not that I was getting [goals] for free, but like, everything just went in. That made it fun. Now, it’s not so much.”
Even after he put together a two-point night against the Sabres — his first multipoint effort in over a month — Carlsson was disappointed not to have done more.
“It’s nice [to score], but there could have [been] even more opportunities,” he lamented. “It was a little sloppy by me, too.”
If there’s a silver lining for Carlsson, it’s that he’s well positioned for a strong second act. Carlsson was named earlier this month to Team Sweden’s Olympic roster for the upcoming Games in Milan Cortina, a prospect both daunting in its challenge and exciting for its possibilities. The roster spot has been a lifeline for Carlsson while trying to stay positive in the face of a free fall — knowing there’s belief in his abilities, and that he will be dominant again.
“There’s a lot of confidence when you start hot like that,” Carlsson said. “The goals just kept on going in. We were just having a lot of fun playing games, too. That’s what you want to go back to.”
CARLSSON CAN BE infuriatingly deceptive on the ice to his opponents. It’s a trait woven into his character off the sheet, too.
“You think he’s on the quieter side — at first,” Ducks forward Mason McTavish said. “But then you get to know him a bit and he’s really chatty. He’s awesome. Guys love him because he’s just the best.”
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Anaheim was also smitten on their Swede. The Ducks picked Carlsson second overall in the 2023 draft, and he’s been their second leading scorer over the last two-plus seasons, with 38 goals and 89 points in 200 games. That’s solid production for a young center still developing his two-way game and learning to balance life as an NHL player.
That includes knowing how much responsibility you can reasonably handle — something Quenneville has had to make clear to his rising star now more than ever. Carlsson was utilized on the power play and penalty kill early in the season, and seemed to be thriving. But concerns over a too-heavy workload forced the Ducks’ bench boss to change Carlsson’s role.
“We took [penalty killing] away to give him some rest and less ice time,” Quenneville explained, as he dropped Carlsson midway through December from nearly 20 minutes per game to averaging 17:29. “And you know, his play at the beginning, when he’s killing penalties, it was really helping his game a lot, and now his production has gone down from some of the success he had in that [special teams] area as well.”
It seems backwards, somehow, to remove Carlsson entirely from his penalty-killing role given it was helping him overall at one point. But Anaheim is playing the long game with Carlsson, to keep him from burning out in a condensed NHL schedule this season — no matter how tough accepting the altered assignment is right now.
“When we talk about him, it’s about how we try to give him confidence,” Quenneville said. “That’s through how we delegate his ice time, how we measure fatigue, seeing what his body’s telling him, and we can see that [data] as well. And he’s got the Olympics coming up, so he’s got a busy plate. We have to manage all of that for him.”
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Leo Carlsson lights the lamp
Leo Carlsson tallies goal vs. Sabres
Carlsson is willing to do what he’s told. That extends to finding chemistry with new linemates as needed. He’s cycled through several wingers this season — rookie Beckett Sennecke and veteran Alex Killorn have been flanking him of late — but hasn’t quite captured the rapport he’s had with Troy Terry this season or last. Carlsson says Terry has brought out the best of him before; unfortunately, the winger is on the sidelines now with an injury, further impacting Anaheim’s depth.
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It’s a multitude of reasons then, as to why the swagger has been slowly seeping from Carlsson’s game like a punctured balloon. Carlsson’s gamely holding himself in check while searching for a patch.
“I just want to get that confidence [back],” he said. “The league [adjusts] and is trying to stop you as well, and I have to be prepared for that. But something else I’ve got to get better at is not being angry or irritated. I’ve got to work on that. I get hard on myself and it doesn’t help.”
When Carlsson does want a boost, McTavish could likely provide one. The Ducks’ top-line forward gets regular touches with Carlsson on the power play, and knows he hasn’t lost any of that offensive ability even when it’s gone a bit dormant.
“He should always be super confident; he is [I think],” McTavish said. “He wants the puck a lot. He’s obviously so skilled. And for a big guy [at 6-foot-3], he can actually skate really fast, too.”
Deception, again. Maybe that’s Carlsson’s burgeoning superpower, being capable of surprising opponents, pundits or even himself with what comes next.
That’s how Mikael Granlund would do it, anyway.
THE 14-YEAR NHL veteran has seen some things while filing through six teams in his career. This first season with Anaheim has put Carlsson’s talent on display for Granlund; now he sees the chance for Carlsson to show his maturity extends past weathering a storm, and steering clear of a skid.
“What you do is ask yourself: what makes you successful?” Granlund said by way of advice. “What are those little things, winning things? Those are the big things you realize. And you have to try and stay positive. Prepare yourself for every game. And then give your best effort. That’s all you can do.”
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Carlsson sits close to Granlund in the Ducks’ visiting dressing room and must have heard that speech before. It’s become part of his ethos in navigating a roller-coaster season.
“I want to focus on just playing a simpler game, which is maybe more difficult [said than done],” Carlsson said. “But when you do the little things right then the goals are going to come, right? It is just looking for that one [goal]. When you get that first one, it’s going to keep going and leading to more goals.”
That’s the energy Anaheim must be manifesting in the win column, too. The Ducks had fallen out of a Western Conference wild card spot after a 1-8-1 run into mid-January, and it looked increasingly possible they’d go from one of the season’s ultimate hustlers to a verifiable let down.
But would that truly tell the tale? Anaheim is, as Granlund points out, a young team that is still finding its rhythm. Lukas Dostal — heir apparent to the Ducks’ starter’s net after John Gibson was traded to Detroit in the summer — has struggled over the last month (at 2-7-1, with an .855 save percentage).
Heavy travel and holidays have taken their toll. And technically, Anaheim is still rebuilding in general manager Pat Verbeek’s vision. In some ways, the Ducks aren’t unlike the Philadelphia Flyers in the past couple of years, a team with enough talent to compete without really being ready to contend.
The hard part is figuring out exactly how to put Anaheim on the rails. There’s precious little time — especially in an Olympic year — to ruminate on what’s gone wrong. What matters is fixing the problems before it’s too late.
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“It’s delicate. I don’t think I’ve been in too many of these [skids], to the extent we’re in it now,” Quenneville said. “We have a lot of guys that were scoring at a high rate. Now the production’s gone a little bit away, and pucks are going in our net. Everybody has stretches when you wonder, okay, was it goaltending? Is it this? Is it that? And one leads to the other, and confidence is part of that as well.
“But we’re a pretty confident team. We’re fast, we’re quick. We can score goals. So I think now we’re at that stage where, let’s just see how good we can check and from that, trust the team game.”
Carlsson’s focus is entirely on seeing the Ducks fly high again. Get him talking about next month’s showcase in Milan Cortina though, and he can’t help but become animated. Carlsson will have to be a quick study on the Swedish team, skating alongside players he’s only admired from afar in the NHL.
For a couple weeks in February, with his webbed foot swapped for a Tre Kronor, Carlsson will be his icons’ equal. And, in a perfect world, he’s touching down in Italy on the heels of another heater.
“It’s just so cool that I’m going to be in the Olympics,” Carlsson said. “It’s the biggest tournament in the world. You’re playing for your country. And there’s [Lucas] Raymond and [William] Nylander, and I’m such a huge fan of [Jonas] Brodin. Yeah. It’s going to be special.”
