Olen Zellweger earns regular spot on Ducks blueline with skating, maturing play

IRVINE, Calif. – As practice ends for the Anaheim Ducks at Great Park Ice, the savvy veterans get off the ice fairly quick to tend to their aging 30-plus-year-old muscles.

Several of the Ducks younger players stick around for some extra reps: extra shots on a willing goaltender or one-on-one drills with the coaching staff. Slowly but surely, one-by-one, those Anaheim players file their way to the locker room.

Nearly 20 minutes after the first Duck stepped off the ice, there are three players making their last cuts on the practice ice: 23-year-old forward Mason McTavish, 20-year-old rookie Cutter Gauthier and routinely the last one off the ice, taking shot after shot from the blue line, 21-year-old defenseman Olen Zellweger.

Zellweger, a 2021 second-round pick in his second season with the big club, has gone from surprise Opening Night fill-in to blue-line mainstay in just 12 games with an explosive skating ability and piercing shot for the 5-foot-10, 187-pound lefty blue-liner.

“He’s a really gifted skater, which you kind of have to be in the NHL these days,” said Cam Fowler, his regular defensive partner. “He has a lot of offensive ability that is just natural and is there for him. 

“He’s done a really good job. He’s worked hard on his defensive game. He’s a smaller guy, so he has to do it a different way. I’ve been really impressed with him, and he’s playing his off-side too, which isn’t an easy thing to do. He’s only going to get better.”

After nine points in 26 games with Anaheim during the second half of last season, Zellweger came into training camp in the mix for a spot in the Ducks top-six defensemen, but the Calgary native found himself just outside for the Opening Night depth chart at No. 7 on the call sheet.

However, a late illness for fellow second-year defenseman Jackson LaCombe saw Zellweger jump into the starting line-up in San Jose. Zellweger would sit the next night in Las Vegas, but he’s been on the blue line in each of the last 11 games.

“You want to speed up these young kids’ ability to play a mature game,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said, “and it’s just reps and exposure to these events. He seems to have started to pick that up.

“When players figure that out, the game slows down, and when it slows down for them, they start being more visible in a good way, and I think that’s the path he’s on.”

Zellweger leads the Ducks D-corps with two goals and four points, and earlier this season, Cronin said he was the team’s best defenseman analytically. Zellweger leads the regular blueline group in 5-on-5 possession numbers with a 45.87% on-ice shot share and is second in all-strengths shot share at 50.11%, just 0.29% behind LaCombe.

He also leads all Ducks defensemen in shots on goal, scoring chances and individual expected goals.

“He’s learning,” Cronin said. “Last year, he would force plays, turn pucks over, get overly aggressive and lose people behind him. He’s a consummate hockey player. Always watching video, always working out.”

Fowler, who entered the NHL 15 seasons ago as a skinny 18-year-old, also remarked on Zellweger’s weight room habits.

“He’s really strong. He’s physically developed,” Fowler said. “That stuff is important to him. Way more important to him than it was to me at that age. He’s already miles ahead with that.”

Fowler and Zellweger have spent the second-most 5-on-5 time together out of any of the Ducks other defensive pair combinations, about 40 minutes behind veteran Brian Dumoulin and Pavel Mintyukov, another second-year blueliner. Of the Ducks current defensive pairings, the Fowler-Zellweger duo is third in 5-on-5 ice-time per game, first in 5-on-5 shot attempts per game and second in 5-on-5 shot attempts against per game.

The pair played together down the stretch last season, which has helped with familiarity early on this season.

“We’re trying to use our skating,” Zellweger said. “We’re at our best when we’re really skating and playing with intensity, whether that’s going back to get pucks hard or making hard passes. 

“We’re not going to blow guys up or something like that, but those intangibles where we can be hard to play against in terms of intensity.”

Each Ducks defensive duo has a veteran paired up with one of the cadre of stellar second-year blueliners: Fowler with Zellweger, Dumoulin with Mintyukov and captain Radko Gudas with LaCombe. Tristan Luneau, another sophomore defenseman, was originally with Fowler to open the season, but the return of LaCombe and the play of Zellweger pushed out Luneau, who was still getting his sea legs with NHL speed after missing most of last season with a knee infection.

Luneau, who like Zellweger and Mintyukov was a defenseman of the year in one of the three Canadian junior leagues in 2023, was sent down to the AHL’s San Diego Gulls last week.

“Physically, emotionally. It’s a big transition going from junior to this league,” Fowler said. “You’re going up against grown men who are physically more mature than you. You have to figure out ways to defend, and things you can use to your strengths as a smaller guy, and for (Zellweger) that’s his feet and his stick.

“I’ll try and help him out as best as I can, but he doesn’t need much help from me so far.”

Lately, Zellweger has excelled on the power play, an area of early focus for the goal-starved Ducks.

Zellweger netted his second goal of the season on a power-play strike against Vancouver on Tuesday, as the Ducks scored power-play goals in back-to-back games. It was the Ducks’ fourth power play goal in the last four games, with Zellweger on the ice for three of them.

Zellweger is fourth on the team in power play shots, most among Ducks defensemen, and sees his shots and one-timers as an underrated skill for him on the power play to open up space for the Ducks forwards on the flanks.

“Guys are starting to have that confidence,” Zellweger said of the power play. “We started with brand new units. I don’t know if anyone’s played with each other in power plays before.

“Some other teams have been working three or four years with the same personnel, but that’s no excuse for us. We’ve got to be dialed in. We’re all capable of having a high-end power play here.”

Zellweger and Anaheim’s power play could have a chance to rocket the Ducks out of their goal-scoring woes when they welcome in the Minnesota Wild on Friday. 

The Wild are 31st in the NHL on the penalty kill. Anaheim, despite being last in the league in goal scoring, has bumped up to 25th in the NHL on the power play.