The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that aren’t taking part in the playoffs plus those eliminated in the first round. Accordingly, it’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Anaheim.
After a rocky showing in 2023-24, the Ducks bounced back relatively well this year with a 21-point jump in the standings. However, that still left them well short of a playoff spot and GM Pat Verbeek acted quickly, firing Greg Cronin and two assistant coaches while Joel Quenneville has taken over behind the bench. Even with that big item checked off, Anaheim has a lot to accomplish this summer.
Make A Decision On Zegras
This was a topic in last year’s checklist and frankly, not a lot has changed since then. Coming off an injury-riddled year that saw him struggle when he was healthy, Trevor Zegras was in all sorts of trade speculation last summer. There were some more intensive talks at the draft but nothing got across the finish line, giving Zegras a chance to make a better second impression on Cronin and his staff.
Unfortunately, this season was largely more of the same. He missed more than 20 games with a knee injury and potted 12 goals and 20 assists in the 57 games he played, only a small uptick in points-per-game compared to the year before. For a player with two 60-plus-point seasons under his belt already, it’s fair to say this was another underwhelming year.
That means the trade speculation is likely to pick up once again in the near future. Zegras now has just one year left on his bridge deal, one that carries a $5.75MM qualifying offer in 2026 when he’ll be a year away from UFA eligibility. An early extension makes no sense for either side so Verbeek has two choices here, hold again and hope things will improve under Quenneville or pull the trigger on a trade over the coming months.
Of course, with the way the last two years have gone, Zegras isn’t exactly at peak trade value. Teams will view him as more of a buy-low candidate and will likely structure their offers accordingly. However, is Anaheim in a spot where a positive-value return that isn’t the best better than running the risk of him having another down year and seeing his value degrade further or even fall into non-tender or club-elected arbitration territory? That’s what Verbeek will be looking to weigh over the next little while.
Bridge Or Long-Term Deals?
The Ducks have two of their intended future core players up for new deals this summer. Armed with more than $38MM in cap space per PuckPedia, Verbeek is in a spot where he can choose which direction to take with them rather than having their cap situation dictate those plans. That cap space largely insulates them from being a target for an offer sheet as well, given their easy ability to match.
The first is center Mason McTavish. The 22-year-old was the third-overall pick in 2021 with the hopes that he could become their top center of the future. (Leo Carlsson was picked a year later and now holds that particular distinction.) Over his first three seasons, his development has largely been gradual but he did set career highs across the board this year and finished second on the team in scoring with 20 goals and 32 assists on a team that had an awful lot of trouble scoring. Still just 22, McTavish is certainly tracking to be at least a core player even if he doesn’t wind up as the high-end number one center his draft status might have suggested.
Having said that, this could be a bit of a trickier negotiation. With the year McTavish had, he wouldn’t want to sign a long-term deal on the basis of him being a 50-point player; he’s going to expect that there’s still more improvement on that front and will want to be paid accordingly. Meanwhile, Verbeek might not want to pay that type of price tag until he sees more from McTavish. He pushed for the bridge deal for Zegras and that decision looks particularly wise at the moment. If it is a shorter-term agreement, it should check in around the $4MM mark.
Then there’s goaltender Lukas Dostal. This was the year when the label of the goalie of the future changed to goalie of the present as he took over as the primary starter. On the other hand, his overall numbers were still relatively pedestrian (3.10 GAA and a .903 SV%) but he was playing behind a relatively weak defensive group. He’s two years away from UFA eligibility so it’s hard to see a two-year deal being the solution here even if it might be the safer way to go normally.
Verbeek’s options here are probably opt for a one-year contract if he needs to see more from Dostal or to pay him like a secondary-tier starter even though his career numbers might not warrant it just yet. In that instance, deals like ones signed by Karel Vejmelka (five years, $4.75MM AAV), Joey Daccord (five years, $5MM AAV), and Mackenzie Blackwood (five years, $5.25MM AAV) look like the range for Dostal’s next price tag.
Find A Trade For Gibson
Another theme from last year’s column, not a lot has changed here either. For years now, Gibson has been in trade speculation and while there have been times when it looked like one might be possible, it hasn’t happened yet. But the environment might be more favorable for a move this time around.
For starters, Gibson quietly had a solid season. His .911 SV% was his highest mark since 2018-19 while his 2.77 GAA was his best since 2017-18, numbers that were better than Dostal. After putting up numbers that were below the NHL average for several years, this was a big step in the right direction and should help quell some concerns that he isn’t capable of playing at that level anymore. That should open up a couple more potential trade avenues at least.
The contract is also more manageable. Yes, his $6.4MM AAV is still on the high side (ranking 11th as things stand for next season) but there are only two years left on the contract. It should be more palatable for Anaheim to hold back at least some money on that deal. If they retained even 20% ($1.28MM), his revised cap hit would be $5.12MM which would be 21st league-wide. That’s more the range he should be in and the Ducks wouldn’t have to eat a lot of dead money to get him there now.
Then there’s the free agent market. Aside from Jake Allen, it’s a particularly weak class, making Gibson more enticing as a trade candidate. If you’re looking for a short-term goalie upgrade, it might be more palatable to trade something for Gibson than commit to a likely lesser option on the open market.
Is this enough to make a trade likely? Probably not, and it should be noted that there is a 10-team no-trade list to contend with as well. But there’s a path to a suitable trade this offseason which hasn’t been the case too often. And if it doesn’t happen, this could very well make another appearance on next spring’s checklist.
Add Some Firepower
Offense has been hard to come by for Anaheim lately. This season, they were 30th in the league with just 217 goals. That was actually an improvement on the previous year when they were also 30th but with only 203 tallies. In 2022-23, they were 31st with 206 goals. If you want to go back to the last time the Ducks were even in the top 20 league-wide in that department, it was the 2017-18 season. If we change that to the last time they were in the top half of the league in goals, that came back in 2014-15.
Suffice it to say, this has been a long-standing issue for Anaheim and one that hasn’t really been addressed, even in spite of some decent additions in Frank Vatrano and Ryan Strome in recent years.
If you’re in the glass-half-full category, there’s reason for optimism. With so many young players in key roles, there’s hope that there will be some internal improvement from all of them which should give them a boost. Playing for a more proven coach in Quenneville might also give them a bit of a lift. But expecting that alone to be enough to get them closer to even being league average would likely be foolhardy.
Anaheim has had one of the more restrictive budgets in recent years with the team trying to spend much closer to the floor than the cap. But last week, team owner Henry Samueli indicated that Verbeek won’t have to penny pinch as much as he did before. That’s especially noteworthy with their favorable cap situation.
At this point, Verbeek shouldn’t be too picky when it comes to searching for potential offensive upgrades. But after spending big on Alex Killorn as a culture-building pickup two years ago and striking out on his targets last summer, Anaheim needs to be a lot more successful in its recruitment class this time around and add some much-needed scoring help to this group.
Photo courtesy of Jason Parkhurst-Imagn Images.