How Ducks' Jackson LaCombe leapfrogged others to become their No. 1 defenseman

New York Times

14-04-2025

ANAHEIM, Calif. — It made sense to think Pavel Mintyukov would become The One on the Ducks' blue line. He burst onto the scene in 2023-24 as a rookie, with lots of quality ice time, moments of physical one-on-one defensive play and scratching the surface of his offensive upside.
It also made sense to think Olen Zellweger would become The One. He skates beautifully, with the ability to carry the puck out of his zone and move along the blue line to find shooting lanes. He's got a knack for getting his shot through to the net and has the puck-moving skills to run a power play.
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Each player also won the best defenseman award in his respective junior leagues in 2023, with Zellweger edging out Mintyukov and Tristan Luneau — another highly talented projected Ducks blueliner — for the top defenseman award in Canadian major junior hockey. As training camp commenced last fall, it was easy to see a future in which Mintyukov or Zellweger started to nudge aside longtime veteran Cam Fowler as the one the Ducks rode in important situations.
Someone did force the Ducks' hand. But that No. 1 position, and all the responsibility that comes with it, now belongs to Jackson LaCombe.
LaCombe's rise has been meteoric in his second season. He has 14 goals — the most by an Anaheim blueliner since Lubomir Visnovsky had a team-record 18 in 2010-11 — and 43 points, which would be higher if the Ducks didn't ice the NHL's worst power play. After ranking fourth among their defensemen in ice time as a rookie (19:23), LaCombe plays more than any other skater on the team (22:09).
'Jacks always had it,' said fellow defenseman Drew Helleson, who has known his fellow Minnesota native since they were grade-school age. 'It was just a matter of time until he kind of grew into his own and was able to showcase what he could do. All our buddies back home, we always knew it was going to happen.
'You watch him in college and before he got here, even a little bit last year, you just could see he had it. Just waiting for him to get the confidence to make some plays. Now he's got it and now you can see what it's doing for him and what it does for us. It's been fun to watch.'
Jackson LaCombe, who has emerged on the @AnaheimDucks blue line this season, is a candidate to join Team USA at the upcoming Men's Worlds. His skating would be an asset on the big sheet.
Our @NHLNetwork coverage of the tournament starts May 9! 🇺🇸@GopherHockey @SiriusXMNHL
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) April 10, 2025
The flight upward for LaCombe, 23, hasn't always been smooth. It was particularly bumpy last season. In 71 games, he showed flashes of his potential as a smooth-skating offensive contributor, but many more instances of tentative playmaking while also learning how to defend at the NHL level and overcoming mistakes made after skipping past the minor leagues.
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With the Ducks firmly in a rebuild, LaCombe also had to deal with losing regularly on a 27-50-5 club after four successful years at the University of Minnesota, capped by a berth in the NCAA title game. And confidence — along with the lack of it — can be more important than ability for a young player in development mode.
'Last year, I was kind of a little bit standoffish and a little bit afraid in some moments,' LaCombe said. 'And I think now I'm just kind of just being myself. Just me being the player that I am is just contributing to my confidence. They're allowing me to play like that, which helps me out a ton. And I think my game is obviously evolved a lot from college. It's a lot different now. Just being able to kind of contribute in all areas of the ice has been huge for me, and it's just been helping me build my confidence.'
On April 1, LaCombe played a personal-best 31:04 in a shootout win over the San Jose Sharks. It isn't uncommon for him to log between 23 and 28 minutes, and he hasn't played fewer than 20 in a game since early January. His effectiveness with regular partner Radko Gudas has been on the wane, as he's been on the ice for 20 goals against in all situations over the last 10 games. But LaCombe's play driving and offense generation in five-on-five play is markedly better year over year (43.6 to 48.9 CF%; 45.51 to 48.86 xGF%).
There are the numbers that measure his improvement. It goes beyond that for LaCombe. He's had veterans to learn from. Gudas. Brian Dumoulin (before he was traded). And Fowler, the big-minute defenseman he replaced.
'He just allows me to play my game and be myself,' LaCombe said of Gudas, the Ducks' captain. 'That's kind of what I needed to hear and needed to do. For him just to be there has been huge for me. Obviously, he's a tremendous guy and such a good player. Just being able to learn from him every day and have a leader like that to play with has been great.'
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The presence of Helleson has also had a positive effect. LaCombe and Helleson played on summer teams as youths in Minnesota and were united at prep power Shattuck St. Mary's for two years before Helleson left to play in the United States National Team Development Program. But after Helleson went to play at Boston College and LaCombe stayed home at Minnesota, they were back together with Trevor Zegras for the United States' gold medal-winning 2021 World Juniors squad.
They reunited when the Ducks acquired Helleson from the Colorado Avalanche in a 2022 trade that sent away longtime defenseman Josh Manson. Now they're roommates, and Zegras said that's enhanced the comfort level that LaCombe now feels. 'Because it's hard,' Zegras said. 'Playing 82 games versus the best players in the world, it's tough. I guess when you have that comfortability on the days in between, I think it helps a lot.'
'I don't know if me being here has anything to do with that,' Helleson said. 'Like I said, we always knew he had it. It was just a matter of time for him to show it.'
Last summer, coach Greg Cronin sought out Golden Gophers coach Bob Motzko to get a feel for how LaCombe might advance as a player after going through the peaks and valleys of his first season. Through a couple lengthy conversations, Motzko convinced Cronin that it takes LaCombe a bit of time to be secure and assured with his game and the atmosphere he's in. It requires a coach to be patient and, as Cronin put it, wait 'for all that talent to bust through.'
If a coach can do that, the wait will be worth it.
'He had the same experience with Jackson his freshmen year at Minnesota,' Cronin said. 'And he said, 'You will see a different player this year.''
Adjustments were also made off the ice. LaCombe attacked the weight room and strengthened his 6-foot-2, 205-pound frame. He also spent a week training with Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor Jeremy Clark to build more combative instincts into his game. Motzko gave Cronin glowing reports.
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'He did some things that were kind of out-of-the-box stuff, which I had talked to Jackson about in terms of exploring boxing or some mixed martial arts to get a real intimate view of a human's response to competitiveness,' Cronin said. 'And he did it. He wasn't broadcasting it. He was very humble about it.'
LaCombe's on-ice transformation began with a terrific training camp. But an illness at the start of the season sapped his momentum. LaCombe didn't play until the season's fifth game but even as he made up ground in the first two months, he was still scratched three times.
One of those was a Dec. 11 game at Ottawa, as the Ducks had Fowler returning from injury and needed him in the lineup to showcase for a trade. After that, LaCombe was back in the lineup for good, and he had a goal and assist in consecutive contests to start a 16-game stretch in which he scored four goals and had 14 points. Fowler was traded to St. Louis on Dec. 14, opening the door for LaCombe to rush through.
'His biggest thing was the trust in his own abilities,' Gudas said. 'And I thought this year he showed up in the camp, he showed all his potential where it is right now. The start of the season, he was playing and trying to do his things. He got on the wrong end of it a few times and I think he learned from his mistakes. He got healthy scratched a few times early in the season, but he never looked back.
'He tried to get better. Worked on the confidence and worked on the things that he's great at.'
'I'm thrilled for Jacks,' Fowler said. 'He's a great kid. I've still been checking in on the guys and watching some of their games and I know he's had a great season. I think there's a lot more to come from Jacks. I think he's destined for great things and I'm happy that he's having some success there.'
When the Ducks drafted LaCombe in the second round in 2019, they knew he'd be a bit of a long-term project, as a forward who converted to defense while at Shattuck. As they saw him stand out on the talent-laden Golden Gophers, where he played above Brock Faber and had Matthew Knies, Logan Cooley and Jimmy Snuggerud as teammates, they remained convinced that he'd find success in the NHL.
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The Ducks now have a clear No. 1 defenseman, and that's a piece they'll need in their build-up toward being a playoff team. They've had players such as Fowler and Hampus Lindholm capably perform in that role — at a very high level during their most recent contention period — but they haven't had a dominant blueliner since Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger.
That is still uncharted territory for LaCombe and he must fend off competition within his own team to be The One. But he is opening eyes across the league by the day.
'I always knew he was going to be this good,' Helleson said. 'It was just a matter of time. And I think he can get even better. It's a start. Who knows how high his ceiling is?'