How was Drew Helleson feeling after his Ducks season debut, in which he collected his first multi-point game as an NHLer?
“Pretty good,” the 23-year-old defenseman said after the game, finding it hard to avoid cracking a smile.
It had been over a year and a half since Helleson’s last NHL game. He played in three games during the 2022-23 season and then spent the entire 2023-24 season in the AHL. A separated shoulder and a wrist issue disrupted his 23-24 campaign. Both injuries came just weeks apart.
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“I take pride in being available and so when you’re injured, it sucks,” he said. “You want to be on the ice as much as you can, so mentally, it’s tough. Obviously, you don’t want to be injured, you want to be playing with the guys, even when things are tough. You want to be out there and so, yeah, it was hard.”
Helleson had just over 13 minutes of ice time in his season debut, spending most of that paired with fellow Boston College alumni, Brian Dumoulin.
“He’s been great. Super easy to talk to,” Helleson said. “(He told me to) just play my game. Just play simple, play hard and things will come. Once you get out there, it’s just hockey at the end of the day and it’s what you’ve been doing your whole life. Just follow your instincts and it’ll be all right.”
The pair of BC alum helped one of their own score his first NHL goal in Friday’s win against the Detroit Red Wings. Cutter Gauthier, another former Boston College Eagle, had been searching for his first NHL tally and finally found it in his 16th game of the season.
“To see it work out that way was pretty crazy,” Helleson said. “It was bound to happen with a guy like Cutter. He’s so skilled. He’s got a great shot, so you knew it was coming. When it rains, it pours, so hopefully he can stay hot here.”
“I didn’t do too much on it,” Dumoulin said with a laugh. “I just snapped the faceoff back. It was good for him to get that first one. A player like him was just scoring a lot of goals everywhere he’s been. When you go game after game without scoring it can wear on you, so it’s good for him to score that one and gain more confidence. I’m sure they’re going to start flowing in now for him.”
Helleson admitted it took him a bit to adjust during the first period. But he was able to smooth things out in the second period. Head coach Greg Cronin agreed with that assessment.
“Shaky first period,” Cronin said. “To his credit, I grabbed him (after the first period) and said, ‘Let’s keep this simple.’ I think he had a little bit of nervous energy, he was being overly aggressive in the defensive zone. (We) tried to get him to simplify it. It was a blessing to have him there, I thought he played really well in the second and third periods.”
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“He’s calm with the puck,” Dumoulin said. “He made some really great plays with people on him. He was very steady.”
Helleson has an opportunity to stick in the lineup for an extended amount of time with Cam Fowler on injured reserve for 2-4 weeks and Urho Vaakanainen out with an undisclosed injury.
Anaheim was able to run three pairs of left-right defensemen on Friday, something they’d rarely been able to do this season.
“It’s nice to have the righty on that side now,” Cronin said. “When you have the lefty passing to a righty in the neutral zone, the puck is distributed quicker. In the offensive zone, (Helleson) kept some pucks in there at the blue line and hit the post there at the end. I think that gave us a bit more firepower.”
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