Preview: Ducks Host Utah Hockey Club for Annual Home Opener at Honda Center

The Ducks will take flight on home ice tonight for the first time this season, hosting the Utah Hockey Club for Anaheim's 31st annual home opener at Honda Center.

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Tonight's fun kicks off at 3 p.m., when Ducks players walk the orange carpet outside Honda Center. Orange carpet festivities are open to the public and will take place on the eastside of Honda Center, featuring Wild Wing, Power Players and face painters. Fans will also have access to the Anaheim Team Store featuring brand new merchandise. Following the orange carpet, fans are welcome to continue the celebration at Brewery X Biergarten’s outdoor terrace, which will be open to all ticketed fans on gamedays throughout the season.

Fans are also encouraged to be in their seats by 6:30 p.m. to enjoy the pregame show and opening night celebration, including the introduction to the team’s 2024-25 21st Duck, players, coaches and trainers. For more on the home opener festivities, click here.

"Before I got to Anaheim, I had only been out here one game a year - I was always out east with Toronto or New York - and the thing that surprised me the most was the fan support here," head coach Greg Cronin said. "We haven't made the playoffs in a while but they show up...I didn't expect it as a New England guy but they have been so very supportive."

On the ice, Anaheim returns home after splitting a season-opening road trip to San Jose and Vegas, earning a 2-0 shutout win over the Sharks before dropping a tight 3-1 decision to the Golden Knights.

"It was nice to get off to a good start," defenseman Cam Fowler said. "The first ame, you're always looking to work out the kinks and to go on the road, get a shutout with [Lukas Dostal] playing unbelievable, that was a good start.

And any time you play a back-to-back in this league, it's always difficult...But we gave ourselves a chance to win, just didn't generate enough offensively. A split is okay but there is more we can get out of our group."

"It was kind of a rusty game in San Jose, but in Vegas there was more energy," Cronin added. "We played a little bit more on our toes...We'll see if we can build off that."

The Ducks now stand at 1-1-0 on the young season, with three of the next four games set for home ice before an upcoming trip back east.

"We're way ahead of where we were last year and we should be [with a year of experience together]," Cronin said. "I think some of the groupings have committed to playing a certain ways and others are still trying to figure it out. When we play the way we're supposed to play, and you saw stretches of it in Vegas...we're a real challenge. A real handful. But when we turn pucks over and manipulate the gameplan, it gets squirely.

"We have to remember we have six 20-year-old kids. Their learning curve is going to be a lot longer than those guys who have played seven, eight, nine, ten years."

Cronin has been particularly impressed by the play of Anaheim's third line with Troy Terry, Ryan Strome and Frank Vatrano.

"They've been good," Cronin said. "They're all veterans. They buzz. They get it deep, they get pucks back. They play with structure, they backcheck and they're responsible."

Meanwhile, on the other side tonight is a familiar foe in a new set of colors as the Utah Hockey Club makes its first ever visit to Honda Center. Utah begins its first season in the NHL this fall after receiving the entire hockey operations department, including management, coaches and players, from the now inactive Arizona Coyotes franchise.

The club has yet to announce its team name, but in June narrowed it down to a list of six finalists: Hockey Club (as the team will be known this season), Blizzard, Mammoth, Outlaws, Venom and Yeti.

Utah has kicked off that inaugural campaign with wins in three of four games, including consecutive overtime victories over the Rangers and Islanders. Young winger Dylan Guenther, signed to an eight-year extension this summer, has carried the attack with five goals in his first four appearances en route to earning NHL First Star of the Week honors.

"We have a team with talent, but for us, the battle is to get inside, to get in dirty areas, get those greasy goals, those tipped rebounds, screens, those kind of things," Utah coach Andre Tourigny told NHL.com's David Satriano. "I think we're a threat at passing the puck, but we're a bigger threat right now going into net and getting those in-tight goals."