May 28– May 28–Sam Steel lurked in the attacking zone, a lone forechecker on the San Diego Gulls’ penalty-killing unit midway through Game 3 of the AHL’s Western Conference final May 22, when Chicago Wolves goaltender Oscar Dansk attempted a routine outlet pass to a teammate.

Then, with an extraordinary display of hand-eye coordination, Steel knocked the puck out of midair, gained control along the right wing a nanosecond later and rocketed toward Dansk’s net to deliver a deft shot through the goalie’s legs and into the back of the net for a shorthanded goal.

Suddenly, there was bedlam inside San Diego’s Pechanga Arena.

The Ducks’ future was on display during the Gulls’ recent charge through the AHL playoffs. Their top prospects, the 21-year-old Steel among them, were some of their top players before they were eliminated by the Wolves in Game 6 of the Western Conference final Monday.

General manager Bob Murray said last month he was determined to give the Ducks’ roster a dramatic makeover sooner rather than later, which was why the Gulls’ role as an incubator for a number of the organization’s best and brightest prospects was so important during their playoff run.

Five or six Gulls, or maybe more, could fill key roles for the Ducks next season.

“The amount of games, the ice time and the critical situations that our young guys who are going to be a big part of the Anaheim Ducks moving forward, I’m not sure you could draw it up any better,” Gulls coach Dallas Eakins said.

“I always wheel it back to training. It’s like in the regular season, you’re running a six-minute mile pace and now every night we’re running 4-1/2-minute miles, and the longer we can run these 4-1/2-minute miles, when we get to the regular season next year, we’ll be running 5-1/2-minute miles.

“Suddenly, it starts becoming normal. Your old normal is so beneath you.”

Pillars of the Ducks, especially Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, are nearing the end of their distinguished careers and Murray sees an opportunity to start fresh without undergoing a complete tear-down and rebuilding project of the franchise starting in 2019-20.

After a season in which the Ducks fell from the ranks of the NHL’s elite with a unceremonious thud, fired Coach Randy Carlyle after losses in 19 of 21 games, finished with a 35-37-10 record and missed the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons, there were reasons for optimism this spring.

Steel, Max Comtois, 20, Max Jones, 21, Jacob Larsson, 22, Isac Lundestrom, 19, and Josh Mahura, 21, among others, skated circles around the opposition while guiding the Ducks’ top minor league team to its first conference final appearance in Eakins’ four seasons as its coach.

Two other prospects, 21-year-olds Brendan Guhle and Troy Terry were sidelined by late-season injuries while with the Ducks and could not play in the AHL playoffs. Guhle suffered an oblique injury and Terry broke his leg while blocking a shot.

Two more, Benoit-Olivier Groulx, 19, and Antoine Morand, 20, never made it to San Diego, but led the Halifax Mooseheads of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League to the Memorial Cup championship game last Saturday. Morand, in particular, could land in San Diego next season.

“We have a bunch of good, young kids in our organization,” Murray said last month. “I think they’re all over the map right now where they are playing and what they’re doing. But I do feel we have a good core group of young players coming along.”

Murray bristled when asked if a turnaround was close, saying, “Close to what? Close to a Stanley Cup? Not a bloody chance. We’ve got to turn it over and change it.” And that’s why the success of the Ducks’ top prospects, especially those playing with the Gulls, was so important.

Winning is imperative in the AHL, of course, but so is development. You can have one without the other and still claim success if a organization’s top prospects develop into useful NHL players. Murray’s philosophy is to “overcook” his prospects rather than rush them to the NHL.

The Gulls’ extended playoff run could accelerate the process, though.

“It’s high-stakes hockey,” Steel said last week. “It’s what you want to be playing. Right now, I’m in the moment and not really thinking about it too much, just going out there and playing my best and trying to help the team win, but I think it’s great to be going deep in the playoffs early in my career.

“I think it’s big, for sure. It’s a great experience.”

Said Eakins of the AHL experience: “You’re going to come and feel the game and jump on the bus every once in a while. I think it’s great for those guys. Take a guy like Troy Terry, for instance. When I look at him, the sky is the limit. I don’t want to put unnecessary expectations on him.

“Troy Terry will be Troy Terry whatever he turns out to be. He’s got some special gifts with his hands and how he sees the game. Could the easy thing to have done with him was just to leave him in the NHL (for all of 2018-19) and let him figure it out?

“Yeah, but Bob Murray sent him here. Go play in the American League and grind it out.”

Success for an AHL team doesn’t necessarily translate to NHL success in the seasons to come.

For example, when the Kings won their second Stanley Cup championship in three seasons in 2014 and then their AHL club, the Manchester Monarchs, claimed the Calder Cup in 2015, it seemed to indicate the organization was headed toward dynasty status at the NHL level.

In fact, the opposite was true.

The Kings missed the playoffs in 2015, were eliminated in the first round in ’16, missed again in ’17 and were swept in the opening round in ’18. Their prospects made the jump from the AHL to the NHL seem like a leap across the Grand Canyon. So far, none have emerged as elite players.

Many times, the roster makeup of AHL teams can be deceiving. Although the mixture of talented prospects and cagey veterans can be blended together to produce extraordinary results in the minor league, there’s no guarantee of success with the big club.

However, San Diego’s classroom in 2018-19 was better than most, according to Eakins.

“This group, with the way it’s structured, with the number of prospects we have and some guys who have played a few years pro who keep getting better and the character of our older vets, I’m not sure you can put together a better club,” he said.

“Bob Murray has drafted well. He’s put high character guys here. We have guys kind of in the middle who keep getting better. When I look around at other teams, this is the perfect structure for a development team. We’ve got a lot of development going on.”

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