Concerning news for the Ducks just dropped and the timing couldn't be worse
Ryan Poehling's series might be over before it really started for him.
Dr. Harjas Grewal posted a medical assessment Tuesday night following the Brayden McNabb interference hit. The Anaheim Ducks forward is going to be in concussion protocol.
The doctor's read on the timeline isn't optimistic for Round 2. The earliest Poehling could realistically return would be the Western Conference Final.
That's a long way away. The Ducks are still tied with Vegas in the second round, and a deep run is no guarantee.
Grewal noted one wild card. Players have come back the same day they take their first regular practice in morning skate. A Game 7 return is technically possible but not the base case.
The injury context here matters. McNabb was assessed a 5-minute major and a game misconduct for the hit. Poehling needed assistance leaving the ice and went directly to the locker room.
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Quenneville loses a playoff weapon at the wrong moment
Joel Quenneville now has to plan a series without one of his most productive forwards. Poehling came into Game 5 with 5 points across 10 playoff games, including 4 goals and a game-winning marker.
His regular season was a career arc. The 27-year-old American posted 11 goals, 25 assists and 36 points across 75 games at a 1.9 million cap hit.
That's third-line price for a player playing top-nine minutes in May. The Ducks can't easily replace what he was doing.
The bigger story is what concussions do to a player's playoff timeline. Most NHL protocols require symptom-free skates, contact practice clearance, and a final medical sign-off.
That sequence rarely takes less than a week. Round 2 might be done by then.
Pat Verbeek's Ducks weren't supposed to be in this position. They beat the Edmonton Oilers in Round 1 against every expectation, then pushed Vegas to a 2-2 series tie.
The McNabb suspension call from the NHL Department of Player Safety is the other shoe. The number of games the league hands out won't change the fact that Anaheim is short.
Game 6 goes Thursday in Anaheim. Quenneville has the home ice and the momentum from a series that's been chippier than anyone predicted.
What he doesn't have is Poehling's penalty kill minutes, his net-front presence on the power play, or his face-off work in the defensive zone.
Concussions don't follow a schedule. The Ducks' Cinderella run might end on a hit that the league is still reviewing.
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MAY 12, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Tage Thompson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Josh Doan | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Cutter Gauthier | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Mason McTavish | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Zach Benson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Beckett Sennecke | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Olen Zellweger | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Norris | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brandon Saad | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||