Ducks right wing Cutter Gauthier skates against the Vegas Golden Knights during the third period of their season finale on Thursday night in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker) Trevor Zegras #11 of the Anaheim Ducks takes a shot against Shea Theodore #27 of the Vegas Golden Knights in the first period of their game at T-Mobile Arena on April 18, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Ducks defeated the Golden Knights 4-1. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Ducks center Trevor Zegras (11) and Vegas Golden Knights center Tomas Hertl (48) vie for the puck during the first period of an NHL ho ..read more

The Ducks’ campaign will end where it began, in Las Vegas against the Golden Knights, but Thursday’s season finale will be remembered more as a commencement than a conclusion. Marquee trade acquisition, World Junior Championships gold medalist, Hobey Baker Award finalist and 2022 lottery pick Cutter Gauthier will arrive in the NHL, making his debut for the Ducks after a season of triumph and tumult for the 20-year-old forward. Gauthier was selected fifth overall in 2022 by the Philadelphia Flyers, but his rising stock after leading Team USA to gold only cemented that he’d be moving on as Phill ..read more

The Ducks have signed their top prospect Cutter Gauthier to a three-year, entry-level contract, adding one of the most promising young talents in the world to a burgeoning stable of young stars. He is expected to make his debut in Thursday’s season finale in which the Ducks will visit the Vegas Golden Knights. The versatile, volume-shooting forward will join lottery picks Trevor Zegras, Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish and the three Canadian junior defensemen of the year last season (Pavel Mintyukov, Olen Zellweger and Tristan Luneau) among those who offer the Ducks a potential nucleus of the futu ..read more

Adrian Kempe #9 of the Los Angeles Kings controls the puck past William Lagesson #37 of the Anaheim Ducks during the first period of a NHL hockey game at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Saturday, April 13, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG) Head coach Greg Cronin of the Anaheim Ducks looks on against the Los Angeles Kings during the second period of a NHL hockey game at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Saturday, April 13, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG) Head coach Jim Hiller of the Los Angeles Kings talks to his team during ..read more

ANAHEIM — Jakob Silfverberg’s last home game as a Duck was also Sam Colangelo’s first, and they skated on a line together in the final 60 minutes of the season at Honda Center, where Calgary prevailed, 6-3. All sentimentality and fanfare receded quickly as the result of a quick start from the Flames, who struck twice in each of the first two periods. The juxtaposition of a soon-to-retire mainstay and a recent college graduate making his NHL debut got overshadowed by an even more stark contrast, that of the Ducks’ first 40 minutes Friday to their final 20, in which they nearly erased a four-goa ..read more

The final installment of this season’s Freeway Faceoff will unfold on Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena, where the Kings will welcome the Ducks. When they last clashed Tuesday at Honda Center, the Ducks spoiled the Kings’ chances to clinch a playoff berth and added intrigue to the season series with a 3-1 win. Though the Kings have since clinched, they were still not locked into a specific first-round matchup as of Friday while the Ducks, whose playoff hopes went from slim to nonexistent long ago, could salvage five out of a possible eight points against the rival Kings in the season series ..read more

Ducks winger Jakob Silfverberg announced his retirement Thursday after 12 NHL seasons, 11 of which were spent in Orange County, where he’ll play his final home game Friday against Calgary. “It’s not a decision that was made yesterday by any means, it’s something that’d been (decided) a while back. I’ve kind of slowly been preparing for it, but it’ll still be a weird feeling tomorrow, my last game at Honda Center,” Silverberg, 33, said. “Hopefully, we’ll have a good game. It’s going to be a special night for sure.” Silfverberg, who was in the final year of his contract but said he still felt “e ..read more

It’ll be fan appreciation night Friday for the final home game of the Ducks’ 30th anniversary season, when they’ll be pitted against the Calgary Flames. Of late, there’s been a theme of player appreciation, as the Ducks build solidarity from a season that’s featured just five winning streaks and only one longer than two games. They could obtain their sixth, as they’re coming off a 3-1 victory over the same Kings that the middling Flames will have played only a night earlier. Though the Ducks remained without key figures like Mason McTavish and Pavel Mintyukov, they have seen three core forward ..read more

The Kings’ Akil Thomas (41), right, scores a goal past Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal (1) during the first period of their game against the Ducks on Tuesday night at Honda Center. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) The Kings celebrate after Akil Thomas (41) scored a goal during the first period of their game against the Ducks on Tuesday night at Honda Center. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG) Kings center Akil Thomas (41) celebrates with the team bench after scoring a goal during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Ducks, Tuesday ..read more

Before the Kings took their thrones in L.A., the Ducks migrated to Anaheim or Wayne Gretzky touched down in Southern California, Willie O’Ree was one of the region’s first hockey stars, illuminating the ice with the Los Angeles Blades and the original San Diego Gulls. O’Ree, who had broken the NHL’s color barrier as its first Black player with the Boston Bruins in 1958 (a decade and a half before another would arrive in the pros) became a goal-scoring champion in the old Western Hockey League, partially because of a move to right wing, where he could finally see oncoming passes. O’Ree, now 88 ..read more