I hear your desire to get back to the playoffs, but if we don't rebuild the right way right now we will not have access to top talent a few years down the road and will get stuck with a mediocre team and no great draft picks. Imo thats how you suffer through a decade of crap. I think we should be building for our next window, which I see as 3-9 years from now. Guys that don't match that window should be used to acquire assets and help improve our draft position by trading away. Id target top pairing defensemen and centers. You can absolutely find legit wingers in mid round picks and free agency and I don't think you have to have 40 goal wingers to win a cup. If over this years and next years draft we can get a top pairing defensemen and a top line center id say we have the best young core in the league. Right now we have a shit team and average to above average young talent. Not good enough
There's more than one way to build a team into contenders.
This window you're talking about and trading NHL'ers for draft picks, isn't that what Bob has been doing?
Multiple first round picks
2014: 10th Ritchie and 24th (used as part of a trade package for Kesler)
2016: 24th LW Max Jones and 30th C Steel
2019: 9th C Zegras and 29th LW Tracey
2020: 6th and 27th
Losing Kesler, Perry, and Eaves simultaneously (and some for multiple seasons) hasn't given the youth movement enough time to mature. 2014 netted Ritchie and Kase. Ritchie didn't pan out as a top-10 pick, but Kase did pan out as a player except he couldn't stay on the ice long enough.
We have a scout team. Let them do their job and find talent across the board. We've found talent in the bottom of the first (RW Palms, D Theodore, RW Rakell), in the 2nd round (C Wild Bill, G Gibson, D Monty, D Pettersson), in the 3rd round (G Andersen), in the 4th round (D Vatanen), 6th rd (D Manson), and 7th rd (RW Kase).
You have no idea how this team can be when healthy for most of the season. When any team gets hit with a multitude of injuries, then it's usually going to be a crap show. The youth wave wasn't supposed to be relied upon last year nor two years ago. Remember, Eaves contract ended this past season. Kesler is still on the hook until 2021-22 season. Perry's contract mimicked Getzy's contract, which ends this season. Losing those three talents on top of all the other injuries just makes it difficult to overcome. We had a top line of Eaves-Getz-Perry and Kesler on the 2nd line.
We finished in the bottom not because we were tanking, but because we lost so much talent to compete with.
The Sporting News' 2019-20 team prospect ranking had us at 11th overall.
The Hockey Writers had us at 9th on its Sept 2020 edition. Also, THW ranked Zegras #1 prospect overall. Apparently, we have talent, but still needing some more maturing. And we're going to be adding two more first round selections in this year's draft.
As a Duck fan, the most important player on the ice is your goalie as we've made it to the Stanley Cup Finals as a 7th seed with an elite netminder, playing solid team defense, and timely scoring. In 2002-03, the Ducks ranked 22nd in Goals For (203 goals), 6th in Goals Against (193 goals against), and a positive differential of + 10.
2018-19: games = 82, GF = 199, GA = 251, goal diff = -52
2019-20: games = 71, GF = 187, GA = 226, goal diff = -39
Our defense going into 2020-21 season is so much better than it was going into 2019-20 season as we added RHD Gudz, LHD Djoos, and LHD Curran (who can play RHD) since the start of the 2019-20 season. With a top-6 filled out, then both Larsson and Guhle will be seasoning in the AHL along with RHD Andersson (who should be coming over once the AHL season starts because he's on loan with Allsvenskan, not his SHL team). We can improve that GA statistic this year as we have more depth on the blue line.
The makeup of our forward group remains unknown. A 9-game set is a small sample space with new forwards Heinen and Milano. Heinen fits the 200-ft disciplined type player the Ducks like, who plays similarly to Silf, but without that lazer shot. Then there's the Zegras factor. C Backes is training hard too, as the Ducks have intimated on keeping him with the club for the season.
The Golden days was with Getz and Perry, who were not selected in the top-15. Yet Getz and Perry had older players on the club such as Teemu, Andy Mac, both Neidermeyer brothers, Prongs, Kunitz, Pahlsson, and Marchant. Trading for middling teen picks by amputating your NHL club doesn't seem like a right move. If you can nab a top-3 pick, then that could help you revive your organization. The Rangers are going to turn around quickly with #2 overall in 2019 draft and they'll be picking #1 overall this year, due to the lottery. We aren't that lucky. The Kings get to land the #2 overall due to the lottery. The Kings drafted 5th last year. Again, we aren't that lucky. But we did land Zegras, so we might have some luck. Zegras' draft classmates got some acclaim in 2nd rd D LaCombe and 4th rd D Thrun. You have no idea if either defensemen can be top-4 blue line NHL guys for us.
Let our scouts do their work than be lazy to try to overload on the draft in two draft seasons for a potential window four or five years down the road with no actual NHL talent on the team by then as well. Again, we've been doubling up on first round picks for a while. We got lucky once with doubling up first round picks in 2003 with the drafting of the Twins, Getz and Perry. We also got lucky that Perry didn't get traded to the Oil.
We have been ranked at the bottom for PP goals and PP efficiency for the past few years. Last year, we scored 27 PP goals as we ranked last in the league. The top PP team was the Oil with 59 PP goals, that's 32 more PP goals than us! If we play sound defense and start scoring more on the PP, then having that goal scorer would carry that much more value. When you watch the Zegras WJC highlights, the receiving end of Zegras' passes was goal scorer Kings' prospect Kaliyev. Wouldn't you want to maximize Zegras' talent?
I like Holtz. I like Drysdale. I like Sanderson. I like Rossi. I like Raymond's potential. I just prefer Holtz because teams don't like to give up NHL goal scorers and if they do, then it'll be costly. We have an elite netminder signed for a long time. We have a top-end defenseman who's only 26 and will be re-signed on a long term deal. Lindholm's proven he just needs a solid defensive defensemen to be his line mate for that top pairing to succeed. We have a very good 2nd pairing defenseman signed on a long term deal in Fowler. We need help on the forward side, particularly scoring. Rossi has high talent, but I'm skeptical he can be a 1C. If you want a center that will be a 1C, then you're looking at Byfield and Stutzle, but we're picking 6th and not in the top-3. Raymond may need a little bit longer in developing to adapt to playing against men. As for Perfetti, I'm just unsure of him (DD has contrarian views on Perfetti: not so good on individual scouting, but high ranking on his top-10). Holtz proved he can score (goals and get assists) against men last year. That's something Raymond should have been doing with his elite skills, but didn't.
Finding legit wingers... to do what? We haven't had a lot of great finds in forwards in the draft.
It would be a shame to waste Getzlaf's year and for sure wouldn't return to the Ducks if the Ducks were selling their NHL talent away for the potential of the future. We already had a preview where this team fielded most of its youth prospect at forward and defense last year. Why would I want to see that for the next five years? GM Murray doesn't want that either. That is why he went after older defensemen in Djoos and FA signing of Curran. Also, he hopes to have both Milano and Heinen healthy (knock on wood). Maybe C Backes plays the similar role that Todd Marchant played for us way back when? Murray sent Terry back down to the A to improve being a driver, but couldn't with C Steel because we don't have talent that can replace him at the NHL level last year. We do now in Zegras.
We won't be a scoring machine, but we'll be a better 200 ft team as Silf won't be the only defensive-minded forward on the team with the addition of Heinen. What the Dallas Stars are this year are who we could become next year.
2019-20 Dallas Stars, Regular Season
GF = 180 goals, GA = 177 goals against, goal diff = -3