With just three days of training camp behind them, the Anaheim Ducks begin the 2026 preseason today by taking on the San Jose Sharks.
Puck drop is set for 1 p.m. PT and will be live streamed on AnaheimDucks.com and the Honda Center + Ducks app.
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This is the first of four exhibition games for Anaheim with all contests featuring either the Sharks or Kings as the opponent. The team will be back at Honda Center on Wednesday before hitting the road for the final two games of the preseason.
Today’s lineup will include key veterans like Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Jackson LaCombe and Alex Killorn, along with young sensation Beckett Sennecke and 2025 first round pick Roger McQueen. Veteran goalie Laurent Brossoit, signed by the Ducks last July, will start in net with Italian Olympian Damian Clara serving as backup and likely to see action.
The Ducks opened training camp this week fresh off a playoff season, the group’s first in eight years.
Head coach Joel Quenneville returns at the helm for his second season with Anaheim, which signed Cutter Gauthier and Leo Carlsson to long-term extensions this summer.
While the core of the Ducks remains young, as Gauthier noted, the group is ready to build on the 25-26 campaign.
“We all, as a young group of guys, expect to take the next step in the leadership aspect of things, take control of the locker room and show it on the ice as well,” Gauthier said. “We’re all excited for the challenge and we just can’t wait to get the season going.”
That challenge begins tonight with the preseason, which will help determine who will round out the roster for the team heading into the regular season.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys vying for spots,” general manager Pat Verbeek said. “As I said to the players, ‘This is the most excited I’ve ever been to come into a camp.’ We’re in a phase that there’s so much opportunity for all our young players, the ones that we drafted to make an impression on the coaches and management, to vie for spots. And so we can look at the Ducks having a lot of depth and San Diego being very good as well.”
As for the Sharks, Ryan Warsofsky begins his third season as the team’s head coach and this past Thursday, signed a contract extension linking him to San Jose for the foreseeable future.
The team inked former first-overall pick Macklin Celebrini to a five-year contract extension over the summer and also added former Duck Jacob Trouba, in free agency.
Here is the planned lineup today for Anaheim:
2 — Lacombe
12 — Colangelo
13 — Nesterenko
14 — Helleson
17 — Killorn
24 — Wahlberg
31 — Brossoit
34 — Mitchell
40 — Klepov
45 — Sennecke
47 — Warren
48 — Myatovic
50 — Solberg
59 — Farrell
61 — Gauthier
64 — Granlund
67 — Luneau
68 — Clara
91 — Carlsson
95 — McQueen