Offseason Checklist: Anaheim Ducks

The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that weren’t playoff-bound plus those who were eliminated early in the postseason.  It’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Anaheim.

The Ducks got off to a good start this season which had them in the thick of the playoff race for most of the year before slowing down late in the year which helped lead to a significant sale at the trade deadline.  GM Pat Verbeek now has a largely clean slate to work with as he enters his first summer at the helm but has some work to do.

Leverage Cap Space

At the moment, Anaheim has over $39MM in cap space with their most prominent restricted free agents being forwards Sonny Milano, Isac Lundestrom, and Sam Steel.  They’re all capable young players but none of them are going to break the bank and significantly cut into that spending room.  If Verbeek has the green light to go to the $82.5MM Upper Limit, he could be a big player in the summer spending around the league.

The big question is what is the best way to spend that money?  They could try to go for the quick fix and look to add several impact veterans which would help replace the exodus of veterans at the trade deadline.  At a time when many teams will have to show restraint in free agency, the Ducks could splurge.  That said, with what’s coming down the pipeline a year from now (more on that shortly), is that the best route for them to take?  And is the rebuild ready to be over or does more work need to be done?  If the answer is the latter, spending big now makes less sense.

If they’re not ready to spend big just yet, then leveraging that cap space in trade talks might be the better way for Anaheim to go.  They should be able to get some future assets in exchange for acquiring an above-market contract with the approach that Arizona has taken recently.  Those contracts will often be shorter in length compared to what they’d be handing out to free agents in July which would preserve their flexibility when their young core is closer to being ready to try to contend.  Retaining salary in a trade (or being a third-party facilitator) to add extra assets is another option as well.  One way or the other, Verbeek will need to take advantage of the opportunity he has with the scarcity of cap space around the league.

Determine Gibson’s Future

Few players have been with the Ducks as long as John Gibson has.  Along the way, the 28-year-old has seen his fair share of ups and downs, both in terms of Anaheim’s performance and his own.  Back at training camp, however, he voiced his frustration with the team shifting towards a rebuild, indicating he was tired of losing.  That has resulted in plenty of speculation about his future with the team.

This isn’t a situation where Gibson is on an expiring contract and a decision of either extend or trade needs to happen.  With five years left on his deal, they’re not going to be in that situation anytime soon.  But with Gibson’s discontentment about where Anaheim has been from a competitive standpoint, they will have to consider whether or not to move him, especially if Verbeek intends to extend the rebuild for another year or two.  Keeping a player who is clearly going to be frustrated with that situation isn’t ideal.

That said, it’s not as if his trade market is particularly strong.  His .904 SV% was below the NHL average this season while a 3.19 GAA isn’t overly impressive either.  Part of that is playing behind a team that had a lot of inexperienced players but that’s only part of it; Gibson wasn’t particularly sharp as well.  For perspective, his save percentage has hovered around that mark for the last three seasons.  A netminder with those numbers that has another half of a decade left on his contract at a $6.4MM AAV isn’t going to carry a lot of trade value.  In general, starting goalies don’t carry great value in the first place but certainly, ones that have underachieved as Gibson has aren’t going to have a lot of suitors.

Are they better selling low and taking a run at a replacement goalie in free agency to partner with Anthony Stolarz next season or do they hold onto one of their longest-tenured players even with him being unhappy about rebuilding?  Neither scenario is great but it’s something that will need to be looked at this summer.

Extension Talks

Right now, cap space is plentiful but that is going to change next summer when three of their top young players are all in need of new contracts.

Troy Terry had a breakout year, leading the Ducks in scoring with 37 goals and 30 assists in 75 games after putting up just 48 points in his first 129 career contests.  The low output led to a bridge contract which he has clearly outperformed already.  Since he’s on his second contract already, the 24-year-old will be arbitration-eligible next summer where he’ll be two years away from UFA eligibility and anything close to a repeat season would push his asking price into the $7MM or more range on a long-term deal while giving him a strong arbitration case if got that far.  If Verbeek is convinced that Terry’s production wasn’t a one-off but rather a sign of things to come, it would make sense for him to try to work out an extension now.

Meanwhile, Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale will be in the final year of their entry-level deals next season and are also extension-eligible in mid-July.  Both players will have five years of team control left next summer and won’t be able to file for arbitration.  Zegras didn’t look out of place as their top center last season and with Ryan Getzlaf gone, he will be carrying a bigger workload as well which could result in a jump from the 61 points he had this season.  Drysdale, meanwhile, averaged nearly 20 minutes per game in his first NHL campaign while chipping in with 32 points, numbers that should only go up in 2022-23.  Many teams often try to work out an early extension over running the risk of an extended negotiation the following summer and Verbeek will certainly want to do that here.

Getting these extensions worked out early would give the Ducks a much better overview of what their salary cap picture will look like in 2023 and beyond.  Three long-term contracts will take a big chunk out of their spending room but if the two sides are too far apart in negotiations to the point where a shorter-term deal makes sense (more for Drysdale and Zegras than Terry), that would then open up some extra spending room for a couple of years.  The sooner they know what they have to work with, the better.

Coaching Decisions

Verbeek opted to pick up the team option on Dallas Eakins’ deal, ensuring he’ll return for his fourth season behind Anaheim’s bench.  But teams often don’t like their head coaches heading into ‘lame-duck’ situations so this might not be desirable for the team.  In those instances, a one-year or two-year extension could be on the table, one that takes away any short-term uncertainty but also doesn’t carry a significant commitment if things go sideways and Verbeek decides he wants to make a change.

There is also some work to do at the AHL level as a full coaching staff is required for the second straight summer.  Joel Bouchard along with assistants Daniel Jacob and Max Talbot were somewhat surprisingly let go after their first season following San Diego being eliminated in the play-in round for the playoffs.  AHL coaching staffs don’t have to be in place at the start of free agency but if they want to try to go after some free agents that are ticketed for the Gulls, it would be useful for them to have their staff in place by then to avoid any uncertainty as those free agents will likely want to know who is coaching before they sign.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.