Mintyukov, Zellweger living on razor's edge of Ducks defensive line-up

Since the acquisition of veteran defenseman Jacob Trouba, it has been a cutthroat battle for minutes along the Anaheim blue line.

What started as a four-way dance between 21-year-olds Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov and 23-year-olds Jackson LaCombe and Drew Helleson has seemingly boiled down to a duel between Zellweger and Mintyukov over the last two weeks for who takes the sixth spot on the defensive corps and who sits in the press box.

Mintyukov has been a healthy scratch in three of the last six games with Zellweger going out as the healthy scratch in the other three games. LaCombe has played 10 straight games since the trade of Cam Fowler, and Helleson has played the last six games after seven consecutive healthy scratches.

“It’s a game-to-game thing,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said on Sunday, “and I think sometimes the lefties, there’s four lefties. I think when (right-handed Helleson) is in the lineup, it gives us a better chemistry with lefties and righties.

“I don’t really want to lose that chemistry. Therefore, you have (Mintyukov) and (Zellweger) battling for ice time, and I think that’s a healthy thing.”

The focus on the two left-handed 21-year-olds comes down to a numbers game.

As veterans, Cronin has given Trouba and Radko Gudas locks on their right-handed spots, along with Brian Dumoulin on the left side. Helleson impressed enough early in his call-up from San Diego to earn Cronin’s confidence and balance the defensive pairs, despite posting the lowest five-on-five possession numbers–44.5% of shot attempts and 30.8% of expected goals while on the ice–of the seven defensemen since his reinsertion into the line-up.

“When you have three righties and three lefties, there’s just a little bit more chemistry on the exits and neutral zone regroups at the offensive blue line,” Cronin said. “Not married to the lefty-righty thing, but sometimes, when you’ve got the extra lefty there, it’s easy to take one out.”

LaCombe, Zellweger and Mintyukov have rotated through the left-side, but LaCombe has secured his position with four points in his last five games and nine points in the last 11 games. LaCombe has also posted the second-best five-on-five possession numbers on the entire team in the last 10 games, with Anaheim earning 53.8% of shot attempts and 52.3% of expected goals with the former Minnesota Golden Gopher on the ice.

That has narrowed it down to Zellweger–who Cronin has called a difference-maker and the team’s best defensemen at points this season–and Mintyukov–who tallied 28 points in his 63-game rookie campaign last year–for the final regular spot on the blue line.

“It becomes a problem in the sense that the younger players don't understand and it's hard to explain that to them,” Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said after the Fowler trade. “We have to keep rotating guys because we don’t want to keep guys sitting on the sidelines too long and because they don't deserve to sit out.

“I've been fairly happy with how our young group has been performing and it becomes difficult for them to understand. That’s when you start to run into problems. I don't want them to have to go through that when they don't have to.”

Mintyukov, who the Ducks drafted No. 10 overall in 2022, was the first to take a seat on Dec. 23 in Vegas after getting burned for a goal against Utah the night before. Mintyukov also sat out three straight games at the beginning of December, as Cronin has emphasized off-puck defending to the young Russian.

“He has a habit of getting on the wrong side of people in the defensive zone. He’s a puck-oriented player. He wants the puck,” Cronin said on Dec. 27. “He sees himself as an offensive defenseman, which he is. Look at his numbers in juniors, right?

“It’s a value system in that, for me, the defenseman should always value themselves by how they’re defending. That’s why they’re called defensemen right? And when you actually become really naturally confident in that responsibility, your offense will take off from that.”

Against Utah on a four-on-four, Mintyukov got puck-focused and lost the eventual goal-scorer behind him, as he took a pass and went untouched around Lukáš Dostál.

Cronin said that Mintyukov immediately recognized that was the habit they had been drilling against, but he wasn’t benched and played into overtime, because the Ducks needed his skill on the ice.

Mintyukov sat the next two games and played the next three. However, in Winnipeg on Thursday, Mintyukov was on the ice for two goals–getting beat in a footrace on a two-on-one from the neutral zone and losing his man around the net for a wraparound on a wide shot recovery–and sat the next night in Edmonton.

“It’s a process with him,” Cronin said, “and the confidence in him, which I genuinely admire, sees, well, okay I made a mistake. I want to go right back in. He should feel that way. So, I tell him, you should be pissed, but unfortunately for him and fortunately for us, we have seven really good defensemen.”

Helleson came in when Mintyukov came out, but for Mintyukov to reenter the line-up, Zellweger took a seat following the Philadelphia game last Saturday.

Zellweger was a minus-2 in consecutive games, and while Cronin said being stripped by a Flyer coming out of the penalty box for the game-icing empty-netter wasn’t the reason Zellweger got sat, it was enough to keep him out of the line-up for the next three games.

“Zelly, that kid, he’s teflon. Nothing bothers him,” Cronin said on Sunday. “You can bite into him, and he gets it. He’s here in the morning and he was anxious to play. We told him we weren’t going with him, and he’s like, okay, I’ll be on the ice tomorrow.”

Zellweger indeed was on the ice the next day, and as usual, he was among the first on the ice and always the last player off the ice at practices and morning skates.

“He’s a coach’s dream,” Cronin said. “He’s totally invested. He doesn’t get affected. He doesn’t have a pity party if he’s not playing. It’s a blessing to have someone like that on our team.”

Zellweger has slowed down after a scorching hot start to the season, where he notched four goals and six assists in 19 games culminating with a six-point, five-game stretch. The Calgary native has registered just two assists in his last 14 games. 

However, over those 14 games, Zellweger is a positive possession player and is second among Anaheim defenseman at five-on-five with the Ducks earning 51.7% of shot attempts and 51.6% of expected goals.

Mintyukov is also on a slower pace than his dynamic rookie season, with a 0.4 point-per-game pace last season down to 0.25 this season. Over that same 14-game stretch as Zellweger at five-on-five, Mintyukov’s on-ice numbers are seventh among Ducks defensemen in shot attempts with 40.4% and sixth in expected goals at 39.1%.

All of this is part of the complicated science of managing young defensemen with limited ice time. 

At this point in their development, both Zellweger and Mintyukov are too good to go to San Diego and the AHL. They need the NHL reps to continue to grow.

But with the veterans holding their spaces in the line-up and Helleson providing the right-handed balance, it will continue to be a fight for that last sliver of ice time on the Ducks blue line, as Zellweger and Mintyukov trade off learning lessons in the press box and video room and applying them to their limited chances in games and practices.

“You could say this about a lot of our guys. It’s a process,” Cronin said. “We all want him to do it right now. We want the result right now, so that we can go on and make the playoffs and be an offensive juggernaut, but it doesn’t just happen that way. 

“I’m really a personality that believes you can accelerate development. If you give them the right coaching, you have the right mentors around them–because a lot of these guys can watch from veterans and the messaging is consistent and the messaging is reachable–that they can get there quicker, and I believe that. I think that we’re trying to create an environment here where those messages are there constantly. They’re not overwhelming. They’re not drowning the players. It’s a way that I think is both healthy for the coach and the player.”