Ducks’ Jackson LaCombe brings new confidence to Team USA at Olympics

IRVINE — When Jackson LaCombe sat in the locker room on his first day of training camp in 2023, he had all the not-so-commanding presence of a gangly teenager holding up the wall at a high-school dance.

That was reflected on the ice for much of his first season, too, when the murmurs were many.

Was he an ‘alpha’? Should he have spent a year in the minors between college and the NHL? Would he get lost amid a crop of higher-profile Ducks prospects on the blue line?

But as LaCombe was breaking in his red...