Confirmed with Link: Ducks acquire Dmitry Kulikov from the Wild for future considerations

[JabbaJabba]

A fine trade. The defense needed depth and while it's still not great, it is better. Also Kulikov can be traded at the deadline for a pick. So that's good.

Maybe one of Kulikov, Benoit or Vaakanainen could play on the right side so they could make a defensive bottom pairing against the best teams. Shattenkirk could sit out those games.

 

[ayrton2388]

If a player traded to Anaheim is even half-decent, im personally not that happy about it...

This is THE year to tank for a team like Anaheim. It should also be it's last near the bottom. But i'd rather go all in for a chance of a lottery pick, and ice a sub-par team one last time, than get some mediocre players who might or might not be traded at TDL for middle-round picks.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

A fine trade. The defense needed depth and while it's still not great, it is better. Also Kulikov can be traded at the deadline for a pick. So that's good.

Maybe one of Kulikov, Benoit or Vaakanainen could play on the right side so they could make a defensive bottom pairing against the best teams. Shattenkirk could sit out those games.

If I remember right, Vaak is supposed to be able to play both sides. Maybe they could still find a taker for Shatt and roll with

Fowler - Klingberg
Kulikov - Drysdale
Benoit - Vaak
Mahura (or maybe take a better young D off waivers)

 

[JabbaJabba]

If I remember right, Vaak is supposed to be able to play both sides. Maybe they could still find a taker for Shatt and roll with

Fowler - Klingberg
Kulikov - Drysdale
Benoit - Vaak
Mahura (or maybe take a better young D off waivers)

That would be a decent lineup. It is probably just a dream 'cos I can't see anyone taking Shattenkirk at this point of the season.

 

[Anaheim4ever]

If I remember right, Vaak is supposed to be able to play both sides. Maybe they could still find a taker for Shatt and roll with

Fowler - Klingberg
Kulikov - Drysdale
Benoit - Vaak
Mahura (or maybe take a better young D off waivers)

That looks pretty good, pretty solid on all 3 pairings. Mahura isn't the worst 7th Dman either but perhaps Helleson gets a look later in the season when injuries happens.

 

[Leonardo87]

Reading some Minny fan comments seems he was a solid Top 4 for them and a very good bottom pairing but had a bad playoffs. Ducks likely won't make the playoffs so won't have to worry about his playoff performance. He seems like a solid #4/#5 D who can eat mins, play physical, and kill penalties. Good partner for Drysdale.

Ducks are looking pretty solid for next season. Not a playoff team but not a bottom team either.

 

[MMC]

If a player traded to Anaheim is even half-decent, im personally not that happy about it...

This is THE year to tank for a team like Anaheim. It should also be it's last near the bottom. But i'd rather go all in for a chance of a lottery pick, and ice a sub-par team one last time, than get some mediocre players who might or might not be traded at TDL for middle-round picks.

I don't understand why people think we need to tank, we have 2 elite talents who have graduated to the NHL, along with some other great young players like Lundestrom and Terry, with an incredibly deep prospect pool, and haven't made the playoffs in 4 years. Why do we need to wait any longer to start going up? Not saying we should go all in but we've proven we have a solid young core who can do some damage at the NHL level, there's no reason why we shouldn't start to supplement them.

 

[Leonardo87]

I don't understand why people think we need to tank, we have 2 elite talents who have graduated to the NHL, along with some other great young players like Lundestrom and Terry, with an incredibly deep prospect pool, and haven't made the playoffs in 4 years. Why do we need to wait any longer to start going up? Not saying we should go all in but we've proven we have a solid young core who can do some damage at the NHL level, there's no reason why we shouldn't start to supplement them.

I think tanking is over for this team, it's time to start turning the ship and start to become more competitive. Let the kids develop in a more winning environment. Doubt they make the playoffs but a more competitive team playing slightly above .500 is certainly in the cards.

Verbeek has at least put together a decent competitive team this summer. Of course a lot has to do with how the kids progress, but Verbeek has literally given a support vet/stop gap player for each higher end kid on the team.

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

I don't understand why people think we need to tank, we have 2 elite talents who have graduated to the NHL, along with some other great young players like Lundestrom and Terry, with an incredibly deep prospect pool, and haven't made the playoffs in 4 years. Why do we need to wait any longer to start going up? Not saying we should go all in but we've proven we have a solid young core who can do some damage at the NHL level, there's no reason why we shouldn't start to supplement them.

I'm all aboard the 'grab' as many picks, but at this point we have a solid foundation going. I don't wan't to trade Klingberg, Kulikov, Strome etc. for picks. Build a new culture with them, and keep them around

 

[The Midnight Burrito]

Seems like he played 18-20 minutes a night on a good team, good defensively. No complaints.

 

[Leonardo87]

Seems like he played 18-20 minutes a night on a good team, good defensively. No complaints.

Future considerations seems to be the thing now. lol. Carolina got Patches for that. These are still good, solid players behind pushed out for younger depth or cap issues. Ducks got a steal here. Ducks D actually looking pretty solid now. Especially if the kids take the next step.

 

[tomd]

I'm all aboard the 'grab' as many picks, but at this point we have a solid foundation going. I don't wan't to trade Klingberg, Kulikov, Strome etc. for picks. Build a new culture with them, and keep them around

We'll be talking about this subject until March but I don't see Verbeek paying big bucks to keep Klingberg. Klingberg fell into Verbeek's lap and the fact that he only signed a one year deal is a pretty good indication that his future is not in Anaheim. He is going to want 4-5 years at probably $5-7 million. I'd be shocked if Verbeek signed him long-term with the D prospects the Ducks have coming up. Kulikov and Shattenkirk are unlikely to be resigned as they are both on the wrong side of 30.

IMO, Verbeek has passed on the opportunity to have a legit shot at Bedard in exchange for getting more draft picks at the TDL along with their own pick which is likely to be in the 6-12 range. He said he wants as many draft picks as he can get and I think he is on his way to doing that.

 

[ohcomeonref]

Picked up a serviceable defender for nothing? Hell yeah.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

Got him for future considerations then can trade him before trade deadline so I have no problem with this move.

Would someone want him after his performance in the playoffs with the Wild? From what I read, he got benched for three games after game 1.

It's funny. We had Sustr last year, but he signs with the Wild for $0.75 mil. Now, Kulikov gets sent here and the Wild shed $2.5 mil. It just feels like shuffling deck chairs. We do need some better depth, though, but should I be expecting much aside from a plug time muncher?

 

[Hockey Duckie]

I don't understand why people think we need to tank, we have 2 elite talents who have graduated to the NHL, along with some other great young players like Lundestrom and Terry, with an incredibly deep prospect pool, and haven't made the playoffs in 4 years. Why do we need to wait any longer to start going up? Not saying we should go all in but we've proven we have a solid young core who can do some damage at the NHL level, there's no reason why we shouldn't start to supplement them.

I don't think we're in a tank mode, but I also don't think we're in a position to start to supplement either. All we did was shuffle the deck chairs with the lost talents over the summer. We became more two-way play on the forward side, improved our blue line offense, but left a huge void defensively. We still don't have proper NHL talent depth today.

I know it's listed that we are 10-deep on the blue line with NHL experience, but that talent level is meh defensively. We're waiting for our top talents to develop or go pro. Maybe RD's Andersson or Helleson get a call up, but the current RD's are quite durable in Klingberg (74 games), Drysdale (81 games), and Shatty (82 games). We'll look much better going into 2023-24 with our defensive talent depth.

At forward, we're still quite young and not proven to be consistent. Zegras, Terry, and Lundy all broke out this season, but only this season. We have big unkowns in Comtois and Jones. Then factor in McTavish staying up in the NHL all season, then it feels more like a development season. We might see some youth get some longer burn in the NHL this year with RW Perreault, LW Tracey, W Regenda, C Groulx, and C Lopina. They're gonna need some NHL experience as we turn over the roster from old to new.

After all that, we have to look at the UFA status going into the TLD this season. C Grant, D Klingberg, D Shatty, D Kulikov, and G Stolarz are all going to be UFA next year. The year after, it's LW/C Rico, RW Silf, and C Carrick that are UFA's. If Verbeek follows the process he did last year, then we might be tanking by default.

Our blue line is behind in talent and development, which probably needs two seasons before we start seeing Verbeek start supplementing the NHL club. Of course, things could change, say like Klingberg signs an extension with the Ducks.

 

[Leonardo87]

Ya know, I think the Ducks should have given Future Considerations another chance. I felt there was potential there. Oh well. we will never know.

 

[IDuck]

dont want this to sound wrong, but im really not use to seeing a russian name involved AT ALL next to the ducks...so when i saw kulikov and ducks it was weird.....it is a breath of fresh air now that BM is gone (who obviously had some issue) and we are going after ANY player.

 

[tomd]

dont want this to sound wrong, but im really not use to seeing a russian name involved AT ALL next to the ducks...so when i saw kulikov and ducks it was weird.....it is a breath of fresh air now that BM is gone (who obviously had some issue) and we are going after ANY player.

The Ducks must feel fairly safe with Kulikov since he's already been in N/A for about 15 years...other teams took all the risk

 

[c4rcy]

I don't think this team is anywhere near the bottom next season. I feel like fringe playoff team is probably on the high end of expectations, like the Kings were last year.

 

[IDuck]

The Ducks must feel fairly safe with Kulikov since he's already been in N/A for about 15 years...other teams took all the risk

no i wasnt getting into any of that.....it had just been soooo long since the ducks have had a russian player..(i guess volkov) but that was like 8 games

 

[robbieboy3686]

If I remember right, Vaak is supposed to be able to play both sides. Maybe they could still find a taker for Shatt and roll with

Fowler - Klingberg
Kulikov - Drysdale
Benoit - Vaak
Mahura (or maybe take a better young D off waivers)

That’s middle of the road nhl talent. Not bad. With all the studs we drafted this past summer, and all the $ we could still spend in the future. Solid

 

[Hockey Duckie]

no i wasnt getting into any of that.....it had just been soooo long since the ducks have had a russian player..(i guess volkov) but that was like 8 games

We also drafted Galimov.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

I don't think this team is anywhere near the bottom next season. I feel like fringe playoff team is probably on the high end of expectations, like the Kings were last year.

The Kings added NHL talent depth to their set roster last off-season with Danault and Arviddson, along with old man Edler on defense. We didn't add two top-6 forward last off-season or extra blue line help.

This season, we didn't add more talent depth to the players we lost. We just replaced. Once injuries started to happen and no talent to take up the slack, we went from playoffs to middling. And when TDL came around, we went from middle to sucking into a lottery spot. We could be repeating that cycle again, seeing we have no actual depth on the blue line.

There are just too many unknown variables going into this season for me. We have a lot of youths still trying to prove themselves and fit in with Comtois, Jones, McTavish, Vaaks, Drysdale, Mahura, and Benoit. How quickly will the new guys adapt in Strome, Vatrano, Klingberg, and Kulikov? Do we possess enough defense to produce an average PK unit? I don't have a great feel for what's going to happen except that Klingberg will thrive with our pinching D offense as well as be on our PP1 unit.

If we have an average defense and average PK, then I think we could be fringe-like playoff team, provided we're healthy. I'm just not confident we have that kind of talent on the blue line today.

 

[Kalv]

If I remember right, Vaak is supposed to be able to play both sides. Maybe they could still find a taker for Shatt and roll with

Fowler - Klingberg
Kulikov - Drysdale
Benoit - Vaak
Mahura (or maybe take a better young D off waivers)

Who is killing penalties on that right side?

Shatty is not the greatest PK'er ever lived, but he was averaging more than 2 minutes per game last year. We pretty much used him and Sustr after the deadline.
Klingberg, Drysdale, and even Vaak, are likely not close to being good there yet. Vaak was given 35 seconds a game after the deadline when there were plenty of opportunities.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

Who is killing penalties on that right side?

Shatty is not the greatest PK'er ever lived, but he was averaging more than 2 minutes per game last year. We pretty much used him and Sustr after the deadline.
Klingberg, Drysdale, and even Vaak, are likely not close to being good there yet. Vaak was given 35 seconds a game after the deadline when there were plenty of opportunities.

Vaak is never running anyone's PP, so he may as well learn to be a PKer