The Anaheim Ducks spent the first month of the season equally torching both scoreboards and expectations. They sit atop the Pacific Division after roughly the first quarter of the season, which is something no one had penciled into a pre-season projection. Their early surge has forced the NHL to have a different conversation about them. It is not whether the Ducks are improved. It is whether this is the moment they become something more than a rebuilding project.

The answer, at least right now, is complicated. The Ducks are ahead of schedule in almost every way, yet they remain a work in progress in ways that matter over 82 games. Their season so far is not a fluke, but it is also not a finished picture. The next quarter will tell us which part of their identity carries more weight.

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