
Controversial late penalty moves Ipswich second after Boro draw
Ipswich draws 2-2 with Middlesbrough thanks to a controversial late penalty.
The Anaheim Ducks are back in the NHL playoffs for the first time in eight years, facing the Edmonton Oilers in the first round. The Ducks qualified with 92 points, while the Oilers finished second in the Pacific Division.
The 2026 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are underway, and for the first time in eight years, the Anaheim Ducks are one of the final 16 teams. They qualified with 92 points in the standings, good enough for third place in the Pacific Division, dubbed the āpillow fight divisionā by a member of the Ducksā first-round opponents.
The Ducksā first-round opponent for their first playoff series since 2018 will be the back-to-back Western Conference Champion Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers finished second in the Pacific, earning themselves home ice advantage in the opening round.
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With the Ducks representing a team with a young core and on the rise, and the Oilers representing a perennial Cup favorite whose tolerance for losing has completely evaporated, storylines are plentiful entering Mondayās game one matchup. Letās get into some on the Ducksā side of the red line:
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The Ducks hired Quenneville on May 8, 2025, nearly four years since heād last been behind an NHL bench as the head coach of the Florida Panthers. After due diligence, Ducksā general manager Pat Verbeek made the decision to hire Quenneville ahead of the 2025-26 season, with a mandate from himself and ownership to make the playoffs as soon as the upcoming season.
The Ducks succeeded in their seemingly lofty goal, and Quenneville will return to coach an NHL playoff game for the first time since the 2020-21 season. In his 26 seasons as a head coach in the NHL, Quennevilleās teams have qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs 22 times and won three Stanley Cups.
The Ducks have a young core and are looking to prove themselves against the experienced Oilers, who are under pressure to succeed.
The Anaheim Ducks last qualified for the playoffs in 2018, making this their first appearance in eight years.
The Edmonton Oilers finished second in the Pacific Division, securing home ice advantage for their first-round playoff series against the Ducks.
This matchup highlights the contrast between the Ducks' rising young talent and the Oilers' status as perennial Cup contenders, adding intrigue to the series.

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In the past, Quenneville has pulled the right strings at the right times to optimize his rosterās impact in each playoff series. Heās identified matchups to exploit, implemented game plans, and made proper adjustments through a grueling seven-game series.
The NHL landscape, skill level, and on-ice product/style have changed considerably since Quennville was winning Stanley Cups in the early-to-mid 2010ās with the Chicago Blackhawks and even since he last coached a playoff game. Will he be able to replicate what he accomplished in the past with an up-and-coming Ducks roster, as he had so many times in the past?
On March 26, the Ducks seemingly had the Pacific Division all but wrapped up. With 86 points through 72 games, they had a five-point lead on the second-place Oilers, were primed to capture their first division title since 2017, and were destined for a first-round series against the Utah Mammoth.
Since that date, through the final ten games of the regular season, the Ducks went 2-6-2, were outscored 41-30, lost home ice advantage, and have to now play a significantly tougher opponent. They continued to face difficulties with poor starts, untimely poor puck or position decisions, and defending the tight areas of the defensive zone, areas that had plagued them for the majority of the first 72 games of the season as well. A difference down the stretch was also that their goaltending, which had kept them in games to that point, fell to mere human levels and was unable to continue bailing them out.
When the games mattered the most, in the regular season, they couldnāt meet the moment, perhaps leaving most analysts discouraged in their chances going into this series. On the encouraging end of the spectrum, though their special teams cratered, their last ten games was one of their best (or their best) stretches of the season at 5v5, as they accounted for 56.3% of the expected goals. Will they extract the positive while discarding the negative aspects of the last ten games when the pressure elevates even further?
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Ahead of the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs, Troy Terry sat fifth among active NHL players in games played without a playoff appearance (488), behind Mario Ferraro (490), Tage Thompson (529), Rasmus Dahlin (586), and Rasmus Ristolainen (820).
That streak is now over for Terry (along with three of the four players ahead of him). The monkey is off his back, and heāll have the privilege of playing hockey in the playoffs. He had been the franchiseās most consistent player through the entirety of the rebuild, having now played for five different head coaches, and is the only roster player remaining from when the Ducks last made the playoffs in 2018.
Can Terry take his game to another level and shepherd the Ducksā current and upcoming crop of young players toward realizing their full potential in their present and future playoff runs?
Had anyone said on Oct. 9, 2025, that, in six months, the Anaheim Ducks were going to finish with 92 points, qualify for the playoffs, and end their eight-year postseason drought, anyone who follows the team and the team themselves would have been more than satisfied with that outcome for the 2025-26 season.
Thereās a sense around various national media outlets that the Ducks donāt stand much of a chance in this series and should simply be happy to have made āthe danceā and gain some valuable experience, getting their feet wet in these high-intensity games.
Those aspects are true. However, for the younger players, their inexperience could make them most dangerous, riding emotion while not fully grasping the pressure of playoff hockey, and for the aging veterans, they do understand the gravity of their situation and how it could represent the last or one of the last ākicks at the can.ā
Can the Ducks capitalize on their blend of youthful naivete and veteran familiarity enough to upset a contender with two of the best centers in the world, both in their primes?
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Time is a flat circle. Teamsā trajectories rise and fall like a roller coaster, and much like in fashion, things in the NHL tend to come full circle. The Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks last met in the playoffs in the second round of the 2017 playoffs. That series will be remembered, from the Ducksā perspective, for the āComeback on Katellaā in game five and the series that put an end to their four-game losing streak in game sevens.
That series now represents the last series win for the Ducks, as their contending window would violently shut after the 2016-17 season. From Edmontonās perspective, that series represented the very first playoff loss for a 20-year-old Connor McDavid, 21-year-old Leon Draisaitl, 21-year-old Darnell Nurse, and 23-year-old Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, as they were coming off their first taste of playoff success in the series preceding, which advanced them to the second round.
Now, nine years later, McDavid is 29, Draisaitl is 30, Nurse is 30, and Nugent-Hopkins is 32. The Ducks, who have a completely different roster without any leftovers from that series, are the team with the young core on the rise. Led by Beckett Sennecke (20), Leo Carlsson (21), Cutter Gauthier (22), and Jackson LaCombe (25), this series will hopefully represent a similar sustainable window of contention.
Can this Ducks roster do what those Oilers couldnāt, and take down a Goliath, or, like on many occasions, will history repeat itself?
Game one of this series will commence on Monday, April 20, at 7 PM PST, in Edmonton.