NASHVILLE — The Ducks closed the 2025-26 regular season against the Predators on the final day of the schedule Thursday night, with Anaheim’s playoff place still hanging on the result in Nashville and the scores elsewhere.
That mattered because the Ducks entered at 42-33-6 with 90 points, just one behind Edmonton and level with Los Angeles in a Pacific Division race tight enough that any of the three could still land in P2, P3 or WC2. Puck drop was set for 5 p.m. PT, with the game scheduled to air on KCOP-13 and Victory+.
Anaheim also had a practical reason to care about the last game. If the Ducks finished second or third in the Pacific, they would open the first round Monday in either Anaheim or Edmonton. If they slipped into the final wild-card spot, they would head to Colorado on Sunday. The final day left the Ducks, Oilers and Kings separated by a single point, and Anaheim’s opponent in the playoffs depended on its own result plus what Edmonton and Los Angeles did.
The stakes gave the night a different edge for a team that had already spent the week adjusting its roster. On Wednesday, the Ducks recalled Tristan Luneau from San Diego, and Joel Quenneville said the defenseman had earned the chance to rejoin Anaheim because of what he did with the Gulls. Quenneville said Luneau had “a couple of games here in the past” and “really progressed over the last part of the year,” adding, “He gets an opportunity. Offensively, he’s got some talent and some ability and we’ll give him a shot.”
Ryan Poehling said the message inside the room was straightforward. “I think for us, it’s just being ready,” he said, adding that the Ducks knew what was coming and had to be prepared for it by giving their best Thursday night. He pointed to the teams Anaheim might face next as the reason that urgency mattered. Edmonton, Los Angeles and Colorado, he said, all have high-end skill, and if the Ducks do not play a full 60 minutes, they can be made to pay. Even a strong 40 or 50 minutes, he said, can be undone in the final stretch.
That is the tension in Anaheim’s night: the Ducks could finish with the same 90 points and still wind up in three different playoff lanes, from a Monday start in one of two buildings to a Sunday trip to Colorado. The result in Nashville was only part of the story, but it was the part that decided how quickly the next one begins.