Speculation: 2024-25 - Free Agency/Trade Thread

[robbieboy3686]

i mean, unless you have insider info you can't say that lol.

He made huge offers too Stamkos/march so at the very least we might indeed throw a bunch at Ratenan if he makes it to free agency. Maybe he’s not keen to make a huge trade( unless it involves a young d and our 1st as main pieces and not Mac/zegras) but free agency is a different animal

 

[Ducksforcup]

Don't see any incentive to trade Strome. Seems like he is well-liked here and having a good season.

 

[robbieboy3686]

Don't see any incentive to trade Strome. Seems like he is well-liked hear and having a good season.

I agree I think he finishes his career as a 4th liner for us

 

[TheDarkWingThatDucks]

I merely offered it as a possibility of Verbeek’s thinking. I think most people believe that talented young players should be playing somewhere rather than just sitting.

I dig what you’re saying also why I said I wasn’t attacking you. But if we trade Dumo (this early before the deadline) who is on our pk1 and our shutdown pairing with Trouba, in order to play 2 - 21 year olds it will be a step backwards and I hope the fan base realizes we will struggle, and that struggle will all be for player development. Which our fanbase complains about constantly, because the points aren’t showing up on the stat sheet. Also if we trade him now for another 3rd or 4th people here will complain Verbeek doesn’t know how to manage assets. I just don’t think anything Verbeek does in regards to Dumo and opening up a spot will make the majority of this sub happy.

i mean, unless you have insider info you can't say that lol.

I mean, he said he wanted to add a top 6 RHW and top 4 RHD during free agency. He added Trouba for the top 4 RHD mid season, it’s probably fair to assume he’s looking to add a top 6 RHW, whether one is available for the value he wants to give up is another story.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

I dig what you’re saying also why I said I wasn’t attacking you. But if we trade Dumo (this early before the deadline) who is on our pk1 and our shutdown pairing with Trouba, in order to play 2 - 21 year olds it will be a step backwards and I hope the fan base realizes we will struggle, and that struggle will all be for player development. Which our fanbase complains about constantly, because the points aren’t showing up on the stat sheet. Also if we trade him now for another 3rd or 4th people here will complain Verbeek doesn’t know how to manage assets. I just don’t think anything Verbeek does in regards to Dumo and opening up a spot will make the majority of this sub happy.

I think the problem lays deeper.

Right now, we are forced to sit out a youth at the NHL level. That happened because we didn't sign enough fringe NHL d-men such as RD Lindstrom or LD Trevor Carrick. The only fringe NHL d-man we had signed on the roster was LD Vaak. Outside of Vaak, all we have signed in the AHL are all youths in LD/RD Hinds (21 years old), RD Luneau (20), RD Warren (20), and LD Dionicio (20). RD Biakabutuka (22) is in the ECHL and cannot be seen anymore than an ECHL d-man.

How we started the season
Fowler-Zell
Minty-Dumo
LaCombe-Gudas
Vaak

AHL signed d-men
RD Helleson
LD/RD Hinds
RD Luneau
RD Warren
LD Dionicio

---

Without Fowler and Vaak

LaCombe-Zell
Minty-Gudas
Dumo-Helleson
Hinds (on away games)

This set up worked because Minty and Helleson were given vets to play with. Zell was playing with our best youth defensive d-man in LaCombe.

---

The trades

Traded away personnel
LD Fowler
LD Vaak

Acquired personnel
RD Trouba
RD Biakabutuka (just to even out a roster spot for Fowler on St. Louis' club)

LaCombe-Gudas
Dumo-Trouba
Zell-Helleson
Minty

By trading away Vaak, the only options for a #7D were all youths. Helleson shining caused the problem b/c we do need 7D and we have no other options available to us in-house.

That is what is causing all the flip-flopping with GM Verbeek on "we're developing right now" to "healthy scratches for competition" and then back to "we need our youths to develop". His overall roster construction has screwed us up. And if he trades away Dumo for futures, then we're gonna still have to bring up a youth D (probably Hinds) to be the 7th D and sit for long periods of time. You can't blame HF boards for having several differing opinions when the GM is all over the place with his direction and misdirection.

---

Pending Dumo Trade

LaCombe-Gudas
Zell-Trouba
Minty-Helleson
Hinds (on away games?)

We have all LD's on the left side and natural RD's on the right side. It's going to be interesting how this plays out all of our strongest d-men aren't spread out due to LaCombe-Gudas being a pair. Do we separate LaCombe and Gudas if the youth 3rd pairing struggles? How long with Hinds have to be a healthy scratch between games?

A band-aid solution that addresses the problem at the AHL and NHL level would be if Dumo were traded for a future (pick) and a journeyman defenseman that doesn't mind being the 7th D and sitting on the bench as a healthy scratch often. Or pick up a journeyman D on waivers around the TDL.

 

[Anaheim4ever]

I agree I think he finishes his career as a 4th liner for us

Yeah seems like he'll be in the league a while longer than Henrique.
Adam Henrique has 12 points in 40 games on the Oilers.

 

[AngelDuck]

The defense is pretty much set for the foreseeable future IMO. It’s really just a matter of the young guys continuing to improve there. I think we’ll be fine. Oddly the current defense kind of reminds me of 12 years ago when we had Lindholm, Fowler, Vatanen all developing together at 19 years old, 21 years old, and 23 years old. We now have LaCombe (23), Mintyukov(20), and Zellweger (21) all developing together

The forwards are a total mess. No one has broken out. Terry is our best forward by a mile. There’s some guys we can sit around and hope improve/get healthy quickly (Carlsson, McTavish, Gauthier, Zegras) but zero guarantees. I think we know those guys will be solid NHL players at this point but there’s no certainty any of them are top liners, let alone the stars that we need a couple of them to be to truly contend.

After that you have some solid depth players (Strome, Vatrano, Killorn) and then a pile of replaceable guys that range from mediocre to outright terrible (Leason, Lundestrom, Johnston, Harkins, Fabbri, etc).

The issue is that the minor leagues have a lack of offensive forwards.

Verbeek is going to need to make a big trade for scoring help to ease the burden on the young guys. The question is who do you move to get that done? Aside from Luneau I don’t see any potentially tradeable assets that can get anything done. And I’m not sure Verbeek moves Luneau this early

 

[FlyingV09]

The defense is pretty much set for the foreseeable future IMO. It’s really just a matter of the young guys continuing to improve there. I think we’ll be fine. Oddly the current defense kind of reminds me of 12 years ago when we had Lindholm, Fowler, Vatanen all developing together at 19 years old, 21 years old, and 23 years old. We now have LaCombe (23), Mintyukov(20), and Zellweger (21) all developing together

The forwards are a total mess. No one has broken out. Terry is our best forward by a mile. There’s some guys we can sit around and hope improve/get healthy quickly (Carlsson, McTavish, Gauthier, Zegras) but zero guarantees. I think we know those guys will be solid NHL players at this point but there’s no certainty any of them are top liners, let alone the stars that we need a couple of them to be to truly contend.

After that you have some solid depth players (Strome, Vatrano, Killorn) and then a pile of replaceable guys that range from mediocre to outright terrible (Leason, Lundestrom, Johnston, Harkins, Fabbri, etc).

The issue is that the minor leagues have a lack of offensive forwards.

Verbeek is going to need to make a big trade for scoring help to ease the burden on the young guys. The question is who do you move to get that done? Aside from Luneau I don’t see any potentially tradeable assets that can get anything done. And I’m not sure Verbeek moves Luneau this early

Offense is clearly the biggest need. We still have Luneau and Solberg as promising D in the pipeline after the 3 you mentioned.

I’m quite confident Gauthier will be a force in a couple years. I’m actually less confident about Leo but still a lot of promise there. We’ll see how Senneceke comes along. After that it’s pretty thin for young forwards. I do think we’ll keep taking swings at big names till we get someone.

 

[AngelDuck]

Offense is clearly the biggest need. We still have Luneau and Solberg as promising D in the pipeline after the 3 you mentioned.

I’m quite confident Gauthier will be a force in a couple years. I’m actually less confident about Leo but still a lot of promise there. We’ll see how Senneceke comes along. After that it’s pretty thin for young forwards. I do think we’ll keep taking swings at big names till we get someone.

I have confidence in Gauthier to be a Timo Meier or Evander Kane type player, which is awesome. Nothing to complain about having a player like that moving towards his prime.

Beyond that I’m not convinced he has more upside personally. I’d love to be wrong

 

[ScarTroy]

The defense is pretty much set for the foreseeable future IMO. It’s really just a matter of the young guys continuing to improve there. I think we’ll be fine. Oddly the current defense kind of reminds me of 12 years ago when we had Lindholm, Fowler, Vatanen all developing together at 19 years old, 21 years old, and 23 years old. We now have LaCombe (23), Mintyukov(20), and Zellweger (21) all developing together

The forwards are a total mess. No one has broken out. Terry is our best forward by a mile. There’s some guys we can sit around and hope improve/get healthy quickly (Carlsson, McTavish, Gauthier, Zegras) but zero guarantees. I think we know those guys will be solid NHL players at this point but there’s no certainty any of them are top liners, let alone the stars that we need a couple of them to be to truly contend.

After that you have some solid depth players (Strome, Vatrano, Killorn) and then a pile of replaceable guys that range from mediocre to outright terrible (Leason, Lundestrom, Johnston, Harkins, Fabbri, etc).

The issue is that the minor leagues have a lack of offensive forwards.

Verbeek is going to need to make a big trade for scoring help to ease the burden on the young guys. The question is who do you move to get that done? Aside from Luneau I don’t see any potentially tradeable assets that can get anything done. And I’m not sure Verbeek moves Luneau this early

I’d guess Zellweger gets moved for a similar level forward prospect, or gets packaged for an impact forward.

 

[Mr Rogers]

The defense is pretty much set for the foreseeable future IMO. It’s really just a matter of the young guys continuing to improve there. I think we’ll be fine. Oddly the current defense kind of reminds me of 12 years ago when we had Lindholm, Fowler, Vatanen all developing together at 19 years old, 21 years old, and 23 years old. We now have LaCombe (23), Mintyukov(20), and Zellweger (21) all developing together

The forwards are a total mess. No one has broken out. Terry is our best forward by a mile. There’s some guys we can sit around and hope improve/get healthy quickly (Carlsson, McTavish, Gauthier, Zegras) but zero guarantees. I think we know those guys will be solid NHL players at this point but there’s no certainty any of them are top liners, let alone the stars that we need a couple of them to be to truly contend.

After that you have some solid depth players (Strome, Vatrano, Killorn) and then a pile of replaceable guys that range from mediocre to outright terrible (Leason, Lundestrom, Johnston, Harkins, Fabbri, etc).

The issue is that the minor leagues have a lack of offensive forwards.

Verbeek is going to need to make a big trade for scoring help to ease the burden on the young guys. The question is who do you move to get that done? Aside from Luneau I don’t see any potentially tradeable assets that can get anything done. And I’m not sure Verbeek moves Luneau this early

I agree with everything here. Leo, Zegs and McTavish are just so critical. Zegs and McTavish are trending towards maxing as 2nd liners which is totally fine if Leo hits but no guarantee of that at all. If we don’t get a first line C out of those we might as well re-enter a rebuild.

Gauthier I think will be fine but he isn’t gonna be a lynchpin guy.

 

[Ducks DVM]

First of all Verbeek never would have offered him $6Mx3 without the deferral. Some people don't seem to understand that. He's not a $6M player and wouldn't be getting that as an option. Now you might think Frank sold himself short. Maybe he plays well and gets himself more as a UFA. Maybe he does, but he didn't go that route and we will never know exactly what he could have gotten. He agreed he was worth $4.57M per year for 3 years. And to a degree, his fawning over wanting to stay here made it clear he took some amount of hometown discount.

As I pointed out that won't work with a guy like Marner because he knows he's worth at least $14M per year and that's what he will want. (And we know he doesn't give hometown discounts.) If he wants deferred money his total payout down the road will far exceed the $14M x 8 that his contract will pay and his cap hit will reflect.

So, whoever a big market team wants to sign will still have to be at an AAV (and real dollars) that is current value to the player today. They won't gain any cap benefit allowing them to load up on talent.

I wasn’t talking about Verbeek offering it. I was talking about some GM in free agency.

 

[robbieboy3686]

I’d guess Zellweger gets moved for a similar level forward prospect, or gets packaged for an impact forward.

Looking like he’s replaced lacombe as far as the most obvious to be shipped in a package for a top line winger

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

I’d guess Zellweger gets moved for a similar level forward prospect, or gets packaged for an impact forward.

I think it depends….

Mintyukov prob holds higher value based on potential than zellweger…. I could see PV dangle Minyukov if the right forward was available. Leaves us with laxombe zellweger and solberg as our future lhd (other guys as depth)


Depends how high on hinds/solberg/luneau we are.


tho I am curious of what we can get with a Luneau + our 1st package

 

[Ducks DVM]

Eh we were supposed to take a step back without fowler too

I think well be fine.

The point of retaining Fowler was to have a veteran, because young defensemen struggle, especially in their second year.

We currently have 2 young second year defensemen struggling.

Trouba took that veteran role, the team would be losing these close games if both Mintyukov and zellweger were in, with there very much being a discussion as to whether getting time off vs struggling away is better for their long term development.

 

[NWWisconsinDuck]

I’m a lot less concerned about Leo than others. He can’t even drink legally. He’s so young and the last few games have been encouraging. Last night I thought he was flying around. He’ll be fine with better linemates. You could put Sidney Crosby with Killorn, Lundestrom/Leason and he’d struggle to be consistent too.

Add a legitimate scoring threat and top forward and it pushes everyone down a notch to where Leo will be in a really good situation again.

 

[Gliff]

I think it depends….

Mintyukov prob holds higher value based on potential than zellweger…. I could see PV dangle Minyukov if the right forward was available. Leaves us with laxombe zellweger and solberg as our future lhd (other guys as depth)


Depends how high on hinds/solberg/luneau we are.


tho I am curious of what we can get with a Luneau + our 1st package

Luneau is by far the most valuable prospect to the Ducks outside of Sennecke IMO. He is the only guy in the whole system that looks like he has top pairing potential on the right side.

The only way they should move him is in a deal for a top pairing RHD.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

Luneau is by far the most valuable prospect to the Ducks outside of Sennecke IMO. He is the only guy in the whole system that looks like he has top pairing potential on the right side.

The only way they should move him is in a deal for a top pairing RHD.

I like luneau… I just felt like the question is

Luneau vs potentially lacombe/zell on right side.


Eventually we’re going to have to move a young dmen for offensive help. Unless we figure out how to get a big name in free agency

 

[Gliff]

I like luneau… I just felt like the question is

Luneau vs potentially lacombe/zell on right side.


Eventually we’re going to have to move a young dmen for offensive help. Unless we figure out how to get a big name in free agency

Youre not wrong, and if they could get a legit top tine forward for that package then I would consider it. I just don't see it happening.

 

[ScarTroy]

I think it depends….

Mintyukov prob holds higher value based on potential than zellweger…. I could see PV dangle Minyukov if the right forward was available. Leaves us with laxombe zellweger and solberg as our future lhd (other guys as depth)


Depends how high on hinds/solberg/luneau we are.


tho I am curious of what we can get with a Luneau + our 1st package

Mintyukov definitely holds higher value, but I think you just make up for the different value by adding to Zellweger.

I much prefer the look of Lacombe-Mintyukov-Solberg on the left side than I do Lacombe-Zellweger-Solberg. That’s just my personal preference though, and that’s also assuming Solberg even makes it to the NHL.

If PV could get a scoring forward with Zellweger plus maybe a b tier prospect I’d be all for that.

 

[TheDarkWingThatDucks]

I think the problem lays deeper.

Right now, we are forced to sit out a youth at the NHL level. That happened because we didn't sign enough fringe NHL d-men such as RD Lindstrom or LD Trevor Carrick. The only fringe NHL d-man we had signed on the roster was LD Vaak. Outside of Vaak, all we have signed in the AHL are all youths in LD/RD Hinds (21 years old), RD Luneau (20), RD Warren (20), and LD Dionicio (20). RD Biakabutuka (22) is in the ECHL and cannot be seen anymore than an ECHL d-man.

How we started the season
Fowler-Zell
Minty-Dumo
LaCombe-Gudas
Vaak

AHL signed d-men
RD Helleson
LD/RD Hinds
RD Luneau
RD Warren
LD Dionicio

---

Without Fowler and Vaak

LaCombe-Zell
Minty-Gudas
Dumo-Helleson
Hinds (on away games)

This set up worked because Minty and Helleson were given vets to play with. Zell was playing with our best youth defensive d-man in LaCombe.

---

The trades

Traded away personnel
LD Fowler
LD Vaak

Acquired personnel
RD Trouba
RD Biakabutuka (just to even out a roster spot for Fowler on St. Louis' club)

LaCombe-Gudas
Dumo-Trouba
Zell-Helleson
Minty

By trading away Vaak, the only options for a #7D were all youths. Helleson shining caused the problem b/c we do need 7D and we have no other options available to us in-house.

That is what is causing all the flip-flopping with GM Verbeek on "we're developing right now" to "healthy scratches for competition" and then back to "we need our youths to develop". His overall roster construction has screwed us up. And if he trades away Dumo for futures, then we're gonna still have to bring up a youth D (probably Hinds) to be the 7th D and sit for long periods of time. You can't blame HF boards for having several differing opinions when the GM is all over the place with his direction and misdirection.

---

Pending Dumo Trade

LaCombe-Gudas
Zell-Trouba
Minty-Helleson
Hinds (on away games?)

We have all LD's on the left side and natural RD's on the right side. It's going to be interesting how this plays out all of our strongest d-men aren't spread out due to LaCombe-Gudas being a pair. Do we separate LaCombe and Gudas if the youth 3rd pairing struggles? How long with Hinds have to be a healthy scratch between games?

A band-aid solution that addresses the problem at the AHL and NHL level would be if Dumo were traded for a future (pick) and a journeyman defenseman that doesn't mind being the 7th D and sitting on the bench as a healthy scratch often. Or pick up a journeyman D on waivers around the TDL.

You blame roster construction, when in reality the only reason this happened, is because helleson has looked solid at the NHL level, after not looking great (stats wise) at the AHL level. Wouldn’t a band aid also be just trading for some AHL defensemen who could be a 7th D NHLer, like a Haag, Carrick or someone.

I’m just saying trading Dumo makes us a worse team today, so I hope this sub is okay with player development if that happens.

 

[Firequacker]

I like luneau… I just felt like the question is

Luneau vs potentially lacombe/zell on right side.


Eventually we’re going to have to move a young dmen for offensive help. Unless we figure out how to get a big name in free agency

I just can't imagine Verbeek moving Luneau any time soon, after he came out and said seeing Luneau's potential last season was a main reason he felt comfortable trading Drysdale.
Nothing is impossible but that would be a pretty high level of flip-flop even by Verbeek standards.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

Mintyukov definitely holds higher value, but I think you just make up for the different value by adding to Zellweger.

I much prefer the look of Lacombe-Mintyukov-Solberg on the left side than I do Lacombe-Zellweger-Solberg. That’s just my personal preference though, and that’s also assuming Solberg even makes it to the NHL.

If PV could get a scoring forward with Zellweger plus maybe a b tier prospect I’d be all for that.

Ya I think I’d be more partial to moving zell than Minyukov or luneau…. But idk that he quite gets us across…. Tough decision regardless.

Hopefully we don’t screw up as bad as the last time we had a group of young dmen

I just can't imagine Verbeek moving Luneau any time soon, after he came out and said seeing Luneau's potential last season was a main reason he felt comfortable trading Drysdale.
Nothing is impossible but that would be a pretty high level of flip-flop even by Verbeek standards.

You’re prob right…. RHD is also typically the hardest to find

 

[All Mighty]

The tough part about trading Zell is that he (IMO) clearly has the highest PP upside of any of our defensemen. I'm not as sold on any of the other guys being PP1 fixtures.

 

[The Midnight Burrito]

. . . I hope the fan base realizes we will struggle, and that struggle will all be for player development. Which our fanbase complains about constantly . . . people here will complain Verbeek doesn’t know how to manage assets. I just don’t think anything Verbeek does in regards to Dumo and opening up a spot will make the majority of this sub happy
. . . so I hope this sub is okay with player development if that happens.

This is an example of what I was talking about earlier w/r/t the rebuild era.