For the first time in several seasons, the Ducks might have advanced beyond the territory of abject sellers and into an area where they can accelerate their rebuild a bit in the leadup to the trade deadline.
They have trended upward with stretches of seven wins in 11 games and six in seven with a rocky road trip wedged in between, but were still nine points back of a playoff spot with 28 games remaining.
The Ducks, who already completed a pair of trades this season and re-signed a core forward, could stay active in the days leading up to March 7’s cutoff.
How that activity takes shape, however, remains dependent on where the team stands as the deadline looms and what opportunities exist to move the Ducks’ movement out of its nascent stages.
Pending Free Agents
Once the Ducks came up empty in free agency, they acquired a pair of veterans in the final year of their respective contracts via trade to add depth and clear the league-minimum payroll requirements. While winger Robby Fabbri and defenseman Brian Dumoulin have performed effectively in the middle of the Ducks’ lineup, both could join former blue-liners John Klingberg and Ilya Lyubushkin among players whom Ducks GM Pat Verbeek acquired and traded in the same season.
Dumoulin could be particularly attractive to a top team, given the value of defense at the deadline and his extensive playoff experience. While he’s been an asset to the Ducks, they have three young defensemen –– Jackson LaCombe, Pavel Mintyukov and Olen Zellweger –– who should fill their left side completely in the imminent future.
Mason McTavish, Drew Helleson, Isac Lundeström and Brett Leason are all pending restricted free agents, though they all seem like fairly safe bets to stay put. There’s still a strong internal belief in McTavish, who entered the 4 Nations Face-Off break on a tear. It will be intriguing to see how the organization approaches his contract talks, especially after its protracted negotiations with RFAs Jamie Drysdale and Trevor Zegras ahead of last season.
Core-reconfiguring Trades
McTavish isn’t the only holdover from former GM Bob Murray’s administration who was considered a core piece, with Zegras and John Gibson also remaining from the Murray era.
Zegras and the Ducks were both comfortable with a three-year term, ultimately, before last season, setting him on a course to become a restricted free agent (RFA) again after next year. Zegras’ flash may not fully mesh with Verbeek’s old-school outlook, though any evaluation of the union has been obfuscated by three serious injuries that have shelved Zegras for swathes of the past two seasons. With no urgency to move him, the Ducks’ asking price to any suitor should be high, but without a more concrete body of work, their odds of realizing it could be low.
Meanwhile, Gibson, 31, has seen trade speculation surrounding him intensify periodically like a case of psoriasis for several years. It’s happened again, with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reporting that Gibson would be open to a trade to a contender such as Edmonton or Carolina if he were that team’s clear-cut No. 1 goalie. For the Ducks, he’s shared the net with emergent force Lukáš Dostál, a RFA to be whose extension will be a high late-season or offseason priority.
Outright Additions
The Ducks seem very unlikely to look for rentals or other win-now type additions, but they have tremendous salary-cap flexibility and some attractive futures that could serve them should longer-term opportunities present themselves.
Mikael Granlund, J.T. Miller, Martin Necas and Mikko Rantanen have already been traded, with Rantanen’s name resurfacing potentially if his new team, Carolina, cannot come to terms on a contract extension with the NHL’s fourth-highest scorer over the past five seasons. As several flat-cap campaigns give way to unprecedented growth in the upper salary limit while parity reigns around the league, teams seem eager to reimagine their rosters.
While being a modest seller may be the most likely position for the Ducks, they’ve seen the psychological toll of losses and morale boost of acquisitions already. Following a trade deadline that saw another rash of departures last year (Lyubushkin, Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick), morale flagged along with penalty-kill and faceoff stats. This year, the addition of Jacob Trouba via trade seemed to invigorate the group some –– even after another veteran defenseman left after Cam Fowler was dealt to St. Louis –– as did the contract extension of experienced flanker Frank Vatrano.
Expecting the Unexpected
Verbeek and assistant GM Jeff Solomon came up with a first-of-its-kind contract arrangement for Vatrano after re-homing Fowler and bringing in Trouba at a marginal cost, all on the heels of back-to-back draft picks in the top three that shook up the order of the first round.
Verbeek stated that he wanted a top-six forward and top-four defensemen, both of whom were right shots, with Trouba checking the latter box in a threshold sense. Adding potency up front will be paramount, as the Ducks need forwards who can both extend zone time and finish plays to bolster an all-around anemic offense.
While it’s possible the club will have an insipid deadline period, the months ahead should get spicier as the Ducks seek to mobilize their cap space and round out their organization.