The Anaheim Ducks keep finding new ways to make the Cutter Gauthier trade look like a steal.
On Sunday, Gauthier delivered his third hat trick in six games, piling up 13 goals over that stretch as the Ducks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 and stretched their winning streak to five. That run has pulled Anaheim right back into the Pacific Division race.
The numbers around Gauthier are getting ridiculous. Per the NHL Public Relations X account, he became the first player in NHL history to record three hat tricks in the first 10 days of a calendar month. His latest burst also pushed him to 15 goals on the season, which leaves him third in the NHL and just one behind the Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl and the Minnesota Wild’s Kirill Kaprizov.
For Anaheim, that kind of production is exactly what made the six-year, $81 million contract Gauthier signed in September such a massive commitment. It also came after a tense offseason in which the Ducks had to lock up both Gauthier and Leo Carlsson. Carlsson’s five-year, $90 million deal, forced by an offer sheet from the Flyers, was the richest in the league at the time and left GM Pat Verbeek working to keep the roster together while nearly wiping out the team’s cap space.
So far, the investment is looking sharp.
Carlsson didn’t register a point against Pittsburgh, but he still has 26 points, tied for seventh in the league. That gives Anaheim a young one-two punch that could become the next great Ducks duo, following in the footsteps of Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya, and later Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry.
The offense is humming, and Sunday’s five-goal outburst carried even more weight because it kept Anaheim on a rare run of scoring consistency. The Ducks became the first team since the 1988-89 Los Angeles Kings to score five goals in eight straight games.
They did it while unveiling their Hometown Remix uniforms, inspired by the 1992 movie “The Mighty Ducks,” and they didn’t need to break out the “Flying V” to make the statement.
The bigger question now is what happens when the rest of the team catches up. Anaheim has given up the fourth-most goals in the league, so the defensive and goaltending issues are still very real. But if those problems get sorted out, the Ducks may have the kind of core that can matter in the Pacific and beyond for a long time.
In Other News...
Cutter Gauthier Just Gave Ducks Fans A Real Reason To Believe
Cutter Gauthier gave Honda Center plenty to cheer about as the Ducks rolled past the Penguins 5-2, with Mikael Granlund, Jackson LaCombe, Tristan Luneau and Laurent Brossoit also helping shape a night that felt more like a statement than a fluke. Kris Letang and Rickard Rakell scored for Pittsburgh, but Anaheim controlled enough of the game to move to 10-7-1 and keep building around a young core that suddenly looks a lot more dangerous.
Gauthiers breakout performance was the headline, but the bigger takeaway for Ducks fans is what it suggests about where this group might be headed if the offense keeps finding this kind of balance. The win added another layer to a promising start, and it leaves Anaheim with a stretch of momentum that has the room feeling very different from the one that opened the season. [Read more 🡒]