Speculation: 2024-25 - Free Agency/Trade Thread

[WhatTheDuck]

I’d love to add Cozens but idk that we have the pieces outside of mctavish, and I don’t think I’d do that.

Brady is prob the only name I’d put mctavish up for(in terms of realistically available).

A healthy zegras
A new coach
A legit nhl top 6 forward
And I think we could be close to playoff caliber

Still on board for trading gibson

Can I make an amendment? Not just a new coach - a good coach! Someone who has proven they can lead an NHL team to some level of success. Not a career assistant, not a second chance guy who failed elsewhere, and full apologies to all the great upcoming coaches out there who deserve a chance somewhere - I hope they get that chance on another team. We need a battle tested NHL head coach who has proven (recently) that he can get a team playing on the same page.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

Can I make an amendment? Not just a new coach - a good coach! Someone who has proven they can lead an NHL team to some level of success. Not a career assistant, not a second chance guy who failed elsewhere, and full apologies to all the great upcoming coaches out there who deserve a chance somewhere - I hope they get that chance on another team. We need a battle tested NHL head coach who has proven (recently) that he can get a team playing on the same page.

Ya we don’t have the roster to mess with unestablished coaches

 

[WhatTheDuck]

Ya we don’t have the roster to mess with unestablished coaches

No more coaches who people around the league are happy to see get the job here, we want someone who people question why he'd want to be here

 

[Kalv]

No more coaches who people around the league are happy to see get the job here, we want someone who people question why he'd want to be here

Is there really any other candidate than Gallant, in that case?

I was thinking Hakstol, but the more I looked into it, his teams had problem scoring in Philly and Seattle. Sounds like no bueno.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

Is there really any other candidate than Gallant, in that case?

I was thinking Hakstol, but the more I looked into it, his teams had problem scoring in Philly and Seattle. Sounds like no bueno.

Hmm no one that jumps to mind. The next time a Montgomery level coach gets fired (and doesn't have massive connections to another club who immediately hires them), we need to pounce.

 

[Hey234]

For those interested in trading some of the vets such as Gibson, Vatrano, etc..., Fowler playing well is good for the Ducks. It provides evidence that these players will improve in a different environment because of the current struggles with the team. A team like Carolina, for example, might feel better about Gibson. Fowler's strong play tonight continuing would probably raise the trade value of others on the team.

 

[Gliff]

Looking forward to Fowler returning to the #2/3 level he has been for his whole career.

Obviously it was a lose/lose for the Ducks. He obviously wasnt going to be that guy here anymore, but it will look like a bad trade if that happens.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

Looking forward to Fowler returning to the #2/3 level he has been for his whole career.

Obviously it was a lose/lose for the Ducks. He obviously wasnt going to be that guy here anymore, but it will look like a bad trade if that happens.

Disagree….

His time here was done, we needed the roster spots for the youth…. Sometimes you have to let pieces that don’t fit the long term plan go and with his contract, we were never going to get great value on him. We prob got more value because he wanted out and would expand his teams he’d go to.

Wouldn’t call it a bad trade, it was a needed trade.

Montour trade was bad
Letting Theodore go for nothing was bad
Lindholm being moved with no plan behind it was bad.

Fowler being traded made sense my

 

[Gliff]

Disagree….

His time here was done, we needed the roster spots for the youth…. Sometimes you have to let pieces that don’t fit the long term plan go and with his contract, we were never going to get great value on him. We prob got more value because he wanted out and would expand his teams he’d go to.

Wouldn’t call it a bad trade, it was a needed trade.

Montour trade was bad
Letting Theodore go for nothing was bad
Lindholm being moved with no plan behind it was bad.

Fowler being traded made sense my

I think we are on the same page. I agree it was time for him to go for the reasons you say.

I still think it will look like a bad trade and people will use it as an example of a bad trade when/if Fowler returns to the #2/3 level I expect him to.

 

[Dryish]

Fowler is 33. Even if he returns to the level of play that he reached at his peak here for a while, it realistically won't stay there for much longer than a year or two. Regardless of our nostalgia for Cam, it's a realistic assessment of the situation to conclude that his departure is good for our D rotation if we want to allow our whole young D corps to mature into experienced Ds instead of just trading them away.

The trade might look bad in isolation, but once you bring the environmental values into consideration then it's hard to look at this and say "we did bad here".

 

[WhatTheDuck]

I think we are on the same page. I agree it was time for him to go for the reasons you say.

I still think it will look like a bad trade and people will use it as an example of a bad trade when/if Fowler returns to the #2/3 level I expect him to.

Oh I can definitely see a scenario where Fowler plays well enough for people to try and clown on the Ducks for this return, without understanding he was not going to play that well here

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

I think we are on the same page. I agree it was time for him to go for the reasons you say.

I still think it will look like a bad trade and people will use it as an example of a bad trade when/if Fowler returns to the #2/3 level I expect him to.

I mean I hope he does, but that was never going to happen in Anaheim under Cronin.

It’s irrelafent tho…. The trade was made because of a log jam

 

[The Midnight Burrito]

Fowler is 33. Even if he returns to the level of play that he reached at his peak here for a while, it realistically won't stay there for much longer than a year or two. Regardless of our nostalgia for Cam, it's a realistic assessment of the situation to conclude that his departure is good for our D rotation if we want to allow our whole young D corps to mature into experienced Ds instead of just trading them away.

The trade might look bad in isolation, but once you bring the environmental values into consideration then it's hard to look at this and say "we did bad here".

PV justified the trade by saying the point was to balance the left-right pairs and get more ice time for Lacombe, Mintyukov and Zellweger, so on that basis its a good trade from a development perspective no matter what happens. Unless those guys don’t end up with more ice time.

As for how Cam does in St. Louis, I imagine he’s also going to look good no matter what. They have good veteran defensemen for him to play with there, they have a professional defensive system, plus PV said that every time he got a trade offer he’d take it to Cam to see if he’d waive. Not having your GM be constantly trying to shove you out the door is probably a relief.

 

[Dryish]

As for how Cam does in St. Louis, I imagine he’s also going to look good no matter what. They have good veteran defensemen for him to play with there, they have a professional defensive system, plus PV said that every time he got a trade offer he’d take it to Cam to see if he’d waive. Not having your GM be constantly trying to shove you out the door is probably a relief.

Not to mention that Cam already had another foot out the door from the start this year. Verbeek said that he and Cam had held discussions about it and that Cam was open to moving, which to me sounds like a veiled way of saying that Cam either wanted out or saw the writing on the wall and realized his time here was coming to a close regardless. Anybody would work with less intensity in a situation like that, especially if their workplace was among the lowest rated on their field.

 

[TheDarkWingThatDucks]

Fowler is 33. Even if he returns to the level of play that he reached at his peak here for a while, it realistically won't stay there for much longer than a year or two. Regardless of our nostalgia for Cam, it's a realistic assessment of the situation to conclude that his departure is good for our D rotation if we want to allow our whole young D corps to mature into experienced Ds instead of just trading them away.

The trade might look bad in isolation, but once you bring the environmental values into consideration then it's hard to look at this and say "we did bad here".

Buddy, if you think more than 20% of people on this forum can even understand what you mean when you say “bring the environmental values into consideration” then I’ve got some beach front property in Arizona to sell ya mate !!!

 

[JAHV]

In that regard, this is a lesser version of the Perry buyout. Perry was obviously better here than Fowler was, but neither were going to get anywhere near their previous levels of play with this organization. Like Perry, I could see Fowler regaining motivation in a different environment and finding a niche as a middle pairing minutes eater, similar to Perry finding a niche as a bottom-6 scoring threat and power play specialist.

But that doesn't mean these moves were bad for the Ducks. I appreciated Fowler immensely, but it was clear he was done here.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

Looking forward to Fowler returning to the #2/3 level he has been for his whole career.

Obviously it was a lose/lose for the Ducks. He obviously wasnt going to be that guy here anymore, but it will look like a bad trade if that happens.

Fowler did his job of helping to shelter the kids, including earlier this year. LaCombe was struggling to start the season and kept LaCombe sheltered. In LaCombe's first seven games, he scored 0g +1a = 1 pt and a -6 rating. Eventually, LaCombe did start to turn things around, especially when Cronin made the change in the system to green light the d-men to pinch down low more often. It also coincided around the time when Fowler went on IR on Nov 5th. Since Nov 10th, LaCombe has scored 6g + 3a = 9 pts and +6 rating in 15 games.

Minty needed a breather as he started struggling of late, which I have shared several tables showing his play was decaying. Fowler gave the team the option to sit Minty down.

@Ducks DVM denoted a few games ago how our blueline lacked hitters on the team because Gudas was the only one we had willing to hit. Currently, Gudas has 97 hits and the second most hits by a defenseman is Dumo with 27 hits. Third is Minty with 24 hits. Since Trouba has been with Anaheim, he has 12 hits in only four games. Verbeek finally was able to add more physicality to the blue line this year with the trade for Trouba. Added bonus is that Trouba is a RD.

When the Trouba trade happened, it became more than obvious that Fowler needed to be traded because we were going to be sitting two young d-men each night with four veteran d-men on the roster.

Moving Fowler out after the Trouba acquisition was a win/win because we are in a similar situation after the trade such that we have a vet D-man presence to help shelter the kids. We simply swapped vets, from LD Fowler to RD Trouba. Added bonus is it puts all our natural LD on the left side, making Dumo play RD with Zellweger. Whenever RD Helleson check back in, then our youth LD will stay on the left side.

The two trades themselves are not a win/win. We bailed out the Rangers by giving up Vaak and a 4th round pick for Trouba and his full salary of $8 mil AAV against the salary cap for the next two seasons. We paid St. Louis to take Fowler by eating almost 40% of his salary for essentially two seasons and a 4th round pick. In return, we get a 2027 second round pick and a RD prospect in the ECHL. Because we traded away Vaak, we lost the only vet-like d-man left in the system and made Helleson the guy that sits as a 7th D for the rest of the season. If Vaak had stayed, then we could have sent Helleson back down to the AHL to play more games as well as see if he can transfer his very good play at the NHL level down at the AHL level this time around. All we have under contract in the AHL for d-men are youths/rookies in LD Hinds, RD Warren, RD Luneau, and LD Dionicio, with the latter not playing eight consecutive games for a bench altercation.