Last season, the Ducks and Buffalo Sabres ended their lengthy playoff droughts and even advanced a round in the postseason for good measure.
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The Ducks had the longest string of consecutive misses in the Western Conference and Buffalo had been absent from the playoffs as long as any North American pro franchise in the four major team sports.
This year, they’ve both got plenty to work on ahead of their matchup on Thursday night at Honda Center.
The Sabres will drag the league’s worst power play and a negative goal differential into the game after being the NHL’s best team in the 2026 calendar year last season.
The Ducks’ issues seem even more severe and certainly longer-standing.
Under Joel Quenneville, the second-winningest coach in NHL history who’s in his second season at the helm since taking over for first-time NHL head coach Greg Cronin, the Ducks (5-6-1, 11 points) have had many of the same issues they did under his predecessor. That’s been despite significant development from the team’s young core and its transformation from a club bottoming out on the cap floor to one banging its head on the salary ceiling.
Before delving into any numbers, a picture of the scoreboard from Tuesday’s 6-5 loss to the Vancouver Canucks was worth 1,000 words. Not only did a 5-2 third-period lead become a discombobulated overtime session, but the loss came to a Canucks team that had been outscored 45-20 as it careened through 10 consecutive defeats.
“That can’t happen,” Ducks captain Mikael Granlund said.
It was a team effort, with passiveness and heedlessness reigning through much of the third period, something that led Quenneville to say that “collectively, as a team, we’ve got to do better.”
“That’s not our identity or the way we want to play,” echoed top defenseman Jackson LaCombe.
Yet there exists evidence that porous defense is a core part of these Ducks’ identity.
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In two campaigns under Cronin, the first of which was an injury-plagued nightmare that netted them just 59 points (in Year 2, they leapt to 80) and both of which saw the Ducks vastly undermanned in terms of talent and experience alike, they finished fourth from the bottom in goals allowed per game, cumulatively.
In a season and change under the much pricier and more renowned Quenneville, they’ve slipped one position to No. 30 of 32 franchises.
Their penalty kill has gone from the second worst to the seventh worst in the league, a clear improvement, but not one that moved the needle significantly. Per Natural Stat trick, their five-on-five numbers have improved even less, going from the fifth worst in the NHL in terms of expected goals against under Cronin to the sixth worst under Quenneville, despite deeper rosters as well as marked jumps in possession and scoring numbers.
Though a depletion of their blue line, first by four offseason departures and then by injuries to Ian Moore and, more recently, Pavel Mintyukov, has contributed, there hasn’t been a particularly effective iteration of the Ducks’ defense corps or overall defensive game.
They’ll get their first crack at steadying their course and, as Granlund suggested, learning from their unfathomable collapse against Vancouver on Thursday when they host Buffalo.
The Sabres (5-4-3, 13 points) are coming off backup goalie Colton Ellis’ 2-0 shutout of the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday. Yet, on balance, they have not built on last year’s success.
Starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen owns an acrid .866 save percentage. Norris Trophy finalist Rasmus Dahlin has not played poorly, but he hasn’t recreated his offensive spark of 2025-26.
Jack Quinn has paced Buffalo up front with Owen Power leading the charge from the back end, as the former No. 1 overall draft pick appears poised to realize his vast potential. Former Duck Olen Zellweger, who was traded in late June, shook off a preseason concussion and has picked up five points in 11 games as a Sabre.
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Buffalo (5-4-3, 13 points) at Ducks (5-6-1, 11 points)
When: Thursday, 7 p.m.
Where: Honda Center
How to watch: ESPN+, HULU, Disney+