Speculation: Ducks are the only team without a single UFA signing (Still need to hit Cap Floor)

[HanSolo]

Is the argument that a roster with Eberle, Hall, RNH, Schultz, Klefbom, Perron, Petry and Draisaitl, all of whom were 27 or under, was nothing? McDavid definitely changed the trajectory of Edmonton and he's the biggest reason they became relevant, but the takeaway from that list is that its truly mind boggling that they made the playoffs once in his first 4 seasons.

I mean, to paraphrase the legendary Pierre Dorion, "it was a team"

But sure, those young guys had promise but the team around them was garbage. That's how rebuilds go. And to your point, it took drafting a guy who should easily finish as a top 5 NHLer all time just to get back to being a playoff team. And even then it took work to build a roster that was capable of making it to the finals, and still, that roster needed to be carried on the back of some legendary performances from individuals.

The Ducks are in a fine spot. It's frustrating that they couldn't get some temporary strength to try to leverage a playoff push, but it happens. They still have a lot of young talent that hasn't reached their full potential because they're still learning and developing.

 

[Captain Mountain]

I mean, to paraphrase the legendary Pierre Dorion, "it was a team"

But sure, those young guys had promise but the team around them was garbage. That's how rebuilds go. And to your point, it took drafting a guy who should easily finish as a top 5 NHLer all time just to get back to being a playoff team. And even then it took work to build a roster that was capable of making it to the finals, and still, that roster needed to be carried on the back of some legendary performances from individuals.

The Ducks are in a fine spot. It's frustrating that they couldn't get some temporary strength to try to leverage a playoff push, but it happens. They still have a lot of young talent that hasn't reached their full potential because they're still learning and developing.

But the point was that they didn't go back to being a playoff team and they fumbled half of those guys badly.

I don't get what it has to do with the Ducks. It feels like the pre-Matthews Leafs is a better comparison.

 

[Volica]

Teams have to make positive steps.
You hear it time and time again from analysts who've played the game.

Not sure what Anaheim is doing here. No one was expecting them to get into the 6-7 year range on the big guys... but there were some decent players available in that 3.5-5M range on 3-4 year deals. They have a bunch of cap, they have more coming off next season, If everything comes together perfectly the next round of big contracts handed out will be 26-27 by which time they'll be out on essentially all their current contracts.

I guess they're looking at re-entering the lotto for the next couple seasons; which will have them making lotto picks over the past 8 seasons with no real progress seen. Love some of the young guys they have, but you have to really insulate them and try and get better or losing just becomes part of the DNA of the club.

 

[SoupNazi]

Ducks should sign Pavelski. You get a good vet for the locker room and pissing offf sharks fan. Win win

Guessing you missed this?

Pavelski doesn’t intend to play in 2024-25 | NHL.com

Stars forward has played 18 NHL seasons, ranks 5th in goals among active players

www.nhl.com

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

They could take the Weber contract from Utah. He is only owed 1M in real dollars, and it is apparently partly insured.

They might have to throw in some picks, or some sort of low-value player/prospect swap to get the league off their back. The league might not like Weber's contract for future considerations, but if it's something like Weber and a 6th round pick for a 7th round pick, maybe they are okay with it since Anaheim wasn't making the trade to circumvent the cap floor, they were making the trade to upgrade their draft pick!

In terms of Arizona (I mean Utah but I am not correcting that, we're not there yet), if they can give up a late pick to not have to deal with LTI for the next two years it's probably worth it. It's one less headache when constructing the roster.

 

[StreetHawk]

Main thing for Utah is to not have any carryover bonuses once they want to legit compete for the PO. As Weber's contract would not allow them to absorb rookie bonuses in the current year if they go over with the inclusion of Weber's contract. That's probably the time they really need to get off the Weber deal.

 

[Hobnobs]

Guessing you missed this?

Pavelski doesn’t intend to play in 2024-25 | NHL.com

Stars forward has played 18 NHL seasons, ranks 5th in goals among active players

www.nhl.com

Maybe I really do need to put sarcasm emojis on posts because the seriousness in here is astounding.

 

[HanSolo]

But the point was that they didn't go back to being a playoff team and they fumbled half of those guys badly.

I don't get what it has to do with the Ducks. It feels like the pre-Matthews Leafs is a better comparison.

My point is we're drawing up the Edmonton Anaheim rebuild comp and the subject is one Oilers fan looking at Anaheim's roster in its current state and drawing sweeping conclusions that the Ducks will be a non playoff team for way longer. Edmonton in 2015 had some solid young talent surrounded by garbage. It took time for them to piece together a roster with enough quality for the team to be a consistent playoff competitor. And even then they still needed McDavid to be an all time talent for that lineup to be worth a damn.

Anaheim has the young talent and veteran stop gaps. But they don't have a McDavid or even a Bedard. Carlsson can come close to a Bedard if all goes well but past that, they need a different approach than Edmonton's. At some point, Anaheim will have more young talent than cap room. They can leverage that to round out a balanced roster. They haven't done it this FA period but there weren't many age controlled veteran options available to them to begin with. In any case, there's just no way to predict what Verbeek is gonna do in the next three years to build a long time winner.

 

[StreetHawk]

Anaheim has the young talent and veteran stop gaps. But they don't have a McDavid or even a Bedard. Carlsson can come close to a Bedard if all goes well but past that, they need a different approach than Edmonton's. At some point, Anaheim will have more young talent than cap room. They can leverage that to round out a balanced roster. They haven't done it this FA period but there weren't many age controlled veteran options available to them to begin with. In any case, there's just no way to predict what Verbeek is gonna do in the next three years to build a long time winner.

The Ducks are now in that the transition period from asset gathering to building the roster. Their premium prospects are now on the roster (not too dissimilar to Detroit) with Seider/Raymond, but Ana has more of them vs what Detroit had before they went on their spending spree. Seider was strong off out of the gate when he arrived and been fairly consistent and Raymond has improved over his ELC.

And with that transition comes challenges that all rebuilding clubs face. Convincing good veterans to join them and help the kids. I thought they had a chance to get some vets via trades giving up picks in rounds 2-4, which they could recoup some of that value back dealing them in a year or two (thus renting them), but I'm going to guess that the Ducks landed on a lot of players MNTC just because of their travel, current state of roster, maybe even taxes.

 

[KrisLetAngry]

If Tarasenko what's Anaheim weather a similar deal the Senators made could work. NMC 24 team NTC or something.

 

[ameselare]

Anaheim has the young talent and veteran stop gaps. But they don't have a McDavid or even a Bedard. Carlsson can come close to a Bedard if all goes well but past that, they need a different approach than Edmonton's. At some point, Anaheim will have more young talent than cap room. They can leverage that to round out a balanced roster. They haven't done it this FA period but there weren't many age controlled veteran options available to them to begin with. In any case, there's just no way to predict what Verbeek is gonna do in the next three years to build a long time winner.

Yeah, it will not be possible for them to pay all of these kids. They'll have:

• LaCombe - currently an RFA 10.2(c), first contract after ELC
• McTavish RFA at the end of the 24-25 season, first contract after ELC
• Dostal RFA at the end of the 24-25 season, first contract after ELC
• Zegras RFA at the end of the 25-26 season, looking for a raise from $5.75M
• Carlsson RFA at the end of the 25-26 season, first contract after ELC
• Gauthier RFA 10.2(c) at the end of the 25-26 season, first contract after ELC
• Mintyukov RFA at the end of the 25-26 season, first contract after ELC
• Zellweger RFA at the end of the 25-26 season, first contract after ELC
• Luneau, Warren, Sennecke - they will all be off their ELCs at some point (Sennecke has yet to sign his, but you get what I mean)

Can definitely trade for some talented cost-controlled vets to fill out the roster. Just depends who's available. I've seen others speculate that Verbeek didn't do himself any favours with the way he nickel and dimed Zegras and Drysdale last summer, but unless we get further indications that that's had an impact on his ability to sign vets, I think players just don't want to go there right now because they don't want to be on a team that's been basement-dwelling for so long.

Verbeek might need to give up more than he'd like in a trade in order to get some talented, established NHLers on the team. He doesn't want to retain on Gibson, (if rumours are to be believed) has a very high asking price for Zegras, etc. At some point something's gotta give. Or maybe the kids just pull it together and start winning a bunch of games this season, who knows.

 

[StreetHawk]

Yeah, it will not be possible for them to pay all of these kids. They'll have:

• LaCombe - currently an RFA 10.2(c), first contract after ELC
• McTavish RFA at the end of the 24-25 season, first contract after ELC
• Dostal RFA at the end of the 24-25 season, first contract after ELC
• Zegras RFA at the end of the 25-26 season, looking for a raise from $5.75M
• Carlsson RFA at the end of the 25-26 season, first contract after ELC
• Gauthier RFA 10.2(c) at the end of the 25-26 season, first contract after ELC
• Mintyukov RFA at the end of the 25-26 season, first contract after ELC
• Zellweger RFA at the end of the 25-26 season, first contract after ELC
• Luneau, Warren, Sennecke - they will all be off their ELCs at some point (Sennecke has yet to sign his, but you get what I mean)

Can definitely trade for some talented cost-controlled vets to fill out the roster. Just depends who's available. I've seen others speculate that Verbeek didn't do himself any favours with the way he nickel and dimed Zegras and Drysdale last summer, but unless we get further indications that that's had an impact on his ability to sign vets, I think players just don't want to go there right now because they don't want to be on a team that's been basement-dwelling for so long.

Verbeek might need to give up more than he'd like in a trade in order to get some talented, established NHLers on the team. He doesn't want to retain on Gibson, (if rumours are to be believed) has a very high asking price for Zegras, etc. At some point something's gotta give. Or maybe the kids just pull it together and start winning a bunch of games this season, who knows.

How many of the kids would be long term contracts vs a bridge when they are due? Most only had 1 season under their belt. So, that's really hard to say at this point in time. Lacombe is probably a bridge at this point with just 1 season under his belt. MacTavish could go long depending on the type of season he has. Everyone else needs a good 24/25 before we can really say.

Ana, has mostly been hard to negotiate with going back to Burke then Murray when it came to bridging their kids coming out of elc. Always push for that 3rd season vs doing a 2 year one. Seems to have continued that trend with PV.

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

With the Fabbri trade, they have hit the cap floor.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

With the Fabbri trade, they have hit the cap floor.

Alright now that we’re at the floor we can charge more for cap dumps….

Who is in need of our service …. We’re turning into the damn coyotes

 

[Captain Mountain]

Alright now that we’re at the floor we can charge more for cap dumps….

Who is in need of our service …. We’re turning into the damn coyotes

In case anyone is curious, my read is that the teams with stupid cap space/positioned to eat salary for a price:

Calgary = projected around 20 mil in cap space, RFAs of note - Wolf, Pelletier
Anaheim = projected around 20 mil in cap space, RFAs of note - LaCombe
Montreal = projected around 10 mil in cap space (plus 10.5 mil of potential LTIR room, so around 20 mil total), RFAs of note - A. Xhekaj, Barron
Buffalo = projected around 18 mil in cap space, RFAs of note - UPL, Jokiharju, Krebs, Malenstyn
Columbus = projected around 18 mil in cap space, RFAs of note - Marchenko, Sillinger, Johnson
San Jose = projected around 16 mil in cap space, RFAs of note - Bordeleau, Dellandrea, Thrun
Utah = projected around 15 mil in cap space, RFAs of note - Hayton, Soderstrom

There are other teams with a lot of room as well, its not the flat cap era anymore.

 

[ameselare]

How many of the kids would be long term contracts vs a bridge when they are due? Most only had 1 season under their belt. So, that's really hard to say at this point in time. Lacombe is probably a bridge at this point with just 1 season under his belt. MacTavish could go long depending on the type of season he has. Everyone else needs a good 24/25 before we can really say.

Ana, has mostly been hard to negotiate with going back to Burke then Murray when it came to bridging their kids coming out of elc. Always push for that 3rd season vs doing a 2 year one. Seems to have continued that trend with PV.

I mean they'll need a contract either way. And after the bridge is done they'll need another contract. As you said, it's hard to guess now considering how little time they've actually spent in the NHL... can see them wanting to go long term with Carlsson and Mintyukov, but other than that, who really knows