IRVINE — Sometimes, a different voice isn’t a bad thing.

In this case, a loud booming voice.

With Ducks head coach Dallas Eakins under the weather, assistant coach Mike Stothers ran practice on Tuesday morning at Great Park Ice. Back when Stothers was coaching the AHL’s Ontario Reign, there was little ambiguity about where you stood. His players knew it and, well, so did the opposition.

“For 35 games, I think he used to scream at me, (him) being in Ontario,” said Ducks forward Max Comtois, recalling his own time playing with the San Diego Gulls.

“He’s a guy that brings energy every day. He’s always cool and he’s always vocal. He’s black and white, and that’s what I like with people behind the bench. There’s no gray areas with him and you know exactly what to expect. I think he’s doing a fantastic job.”

The messaging from the assistants on Eakins’ staff is not limited to practices. Stothers is in his second season with the Ducks after coaching the Kings’ AHL affiliates (Ontario/Manchester) for six seasons. Another assistant on the Ducks’ coaching staff, Craig Johnson, was an assistant with Ontario from 2020 to 2022.

“Dallas does a good job of that – even in between periods, having the assistants come in, deliver the message,” defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said. “We understand that in the locker room. Getzy (Ryan Getzlaf) was good at that, saying, ‘I’m not going to speak if you guys have something to say.’ Cam (Fowler) or any of the older guys on the team to deliver the message.

“You don’t want your voice to get tired.

“Stutts obviously has his own way of delivering the message. It was refreshing for us all. We know it comes from a great place. Once you crack the code of what he is trying to actually say, there’s a lesson there and things he’s trying to teach you.”

Stothers also spoke to the distribution of responsibility by Eakins.

“They hear us all whether it’s the PK (penalty kill) meetings, the power-play meetings or individually where we’re grabbing guys in and showing them video and stuff like that,” Stothers said. “(Today) it was more of – when somebody is down – what does the team do? You just pick up. Hopefully, he (Eakins) is feeling better.”

WILD REUNION

When you’ve played for six NHL organizations and on team No. 7, like defenseman Dmitry Kulikov, the facing-former-teammates narrative could feel old. But that won’t necessarily be the case when the Ducks play the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night at Honda Center.

Related Articles

Kulikov played 80 games with the Wild this past season and was traded to the Ducks by Minnesota at the end of August for future considerations.

“Sometimes you can’t control the emotions and what you are feeling on the ice,” Kulikov said. “It’s pretty fresh still. We’ll see.”

ALSO

Center Sam Carrick, who underwent offseason hip surgery, played in three games with the Gulls this past weekend. He did not take part in practice on Tuesday.

“There’s a fatigue factor – that’s why he wasn’t out there today,” Stothers said. “It’s more just to let things settle down. Once you’ve been out that long and you start coming back, it’s easy to fatigue that injury area. Just a day off, maintenance day.”