Preview: Trouba to Make Ducks Debut Tonight in Montreal

Jacob Trouba will make his Ducks debut tonight as the Ducks open a four-game northeast road trip tonight against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre.

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Anaheim hits the road looking to bounce back from consecutive losses on home ice to two of the top teams in the Western Conference, 4-1 to Vegas and 5-1 to Minnesota.

"Obviously a tough result," Ducks captain Radko Gudas said of he loss to the Wild. "I thought at the start of the game we had a pretty good jump, but then in the second period, we didn’t put enough pucks behind their D. They made us pay for our mistakes and our communication in our zone. They’re a very good team and they made us pay for every one of our mistakes."

The loss dropped Anaheim to 10-12-3 on the season, with a 5-4-1 mark in the club's last 10 outings.

"There were [scoring] chances, but ours were sporadic, and they were getting chances with sustained pressure," head coach Greg Cronin said. "That was because we were late to pucks. We just didn't win enough puck battles and when they had the opportunity to shoot pucks through, they got them through. We had a really hard time getting pucks through."

The biggest news of the weekend for Anaheim though came on the trade front, as the Ducks acquired veteran defenseman Jacob Trouba from the New York Rangers in exchange for defenseman Urho Vaakanainen and a 2025 fourth-round pick.

"When a player of this caliber comes available, I wanted to help our team and I think he improves our team," Ducks GM Pat Verbeek said. "He gives us a lot of depth on defense now. He's a really good penalty killer. I think he's got some underrated offensive skills that probably haven't shown in the last year or so. I think overall it gives our team a lot more rigid physical play to the rest of our group. And for me, as I'm trying to make this team better, that is part of how I want us to play. I want us to be really tough to play against and he certainly adds that element to our group."

Trouba, expected to be paired with Cam Fowler tonight, had served as the Rangers captain each of the last three seasons. This year, he's collected six assists in 24 games and at the time of the trade led the Rangers in blocked shots (68), shorthanded time on ice per game (3:03) and total shorthanded time on ice (73:22).

"The way our D is constructed, a lot of our skilled young D are lefties, so I think it compliments everybody quite well," said Ryan Strome, who played with Trouba in New York. "I know from talking to him we are going to have a really highly motivated individual with a little bit of a weight off his shoulders that is excited to play and wanted to play in Anaheim. So, I think those are all positives and things that can jumpstart our group going forward and I think we are all excited to have him."

Trouba's debut will come against a Montreal team trying to climb its way back into the Eastern Conference playoff race early in the season. The Habs have earned four of six possible standings points thus far on a five-game homestand, but Saturday night fell 4-2 to the Washington Capitals despite claiming an early two-goal lead.

"We had a great start, I thought our game overall was tight all game," Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki said. "They're a good team. If we capitalized on our scoring chances, we might have gotten a better result, but it was a two-goal lead and we let them back in. Didn't win the third period. It's a tough one to swallow."

Montreal (10-14-3, 23 points) sits eighth in the Atlantic Division.