4 Positive Signs for Anaheim Ducks’ Rebuild

While this season has presented its fair share of challenges, this was far from a make-or-break campaign for Anaheim’s rebuild. In fact, the franchise’s future is as bright as ever. They had two rookies debut this season, and, despite their various injuries, they appear destined for stardom. Two years after his hiring, general manager Pat Verbeek now has a few successful free agency adds, as well as a blockbuster prospect swap to go with his now-annual trade deadline sell-off. Additionally, when the team is finally ready to compete, they’ve bolstered the goaltending pipeline to ensure the team has a quality netminder whenever the competitive window opens. And finally, as this young team continues to develop and mature, the leadership vacuum left by Ryan Getzlaf’s retirement should be addressed soon.

Leo Carlsson and Pavel Mintyukov are Future Stars

Anaheim has had a lot of youth come in and out of the lineup this season, and none have had a bigger impact than Leo Carlsson and Pavel Mintyukov. While one could argue it’s hard to miss on a second and tenth overall pick, respectively, there’s absolutely a history of it being done. Not only were these hits, but these two players look like they could be among the best at their positions in the coming years.

Carlsson didn’t garner the same excitement as Connor Bedard or even Adam Fantilli heading into the 2023 NHL Draft, but he was very much a part of the big three “can’t miss” prospects of the draft. The Ducks raised some eyebrows by taking him over Fantilli, but the choice has looked brilliant ever since. The 19-year-old Swede has only appeared in 43 games as a result of a few injuries as well as an early-season game management plan, but he’s looked like a future top-line center when he’s on the ice. On the offensive side, his high hockey IQ and active stick help create opportunities for his teammates. The numbers aren’t eye-popping, but the NHL isn’t a league where teenagers can come in and dominate. With a few more years, and even a few more inches to his 6-foot-3 frame, he could be a dominating two-way center leading the Ducks back into the postseason.

Mintyukov has also had a standout rookie season and has a big role in the team’s defensive turnaround from a year ago. The 20-year-old Russian blueliner has already shown flashes of a savvy veteran, using every part of his frame to force the puck away and stop rushes as they manifest in the neutral zone. Offensively, he’s a skilled skater with the puck and has a future leading the top power-play unit. His 28 points rank second among Ducks defensemen this season despite missing 11 games with a separated shoulder.

Smart Moves by Verbeek: Trade Deadline, Free Agency Redemption & Gauthier

Last season was a mixed bag for Pat Verbeek in his first full campaign as Anaheim’s general manager. As far as a rebuild goes, he’s proven himself to be more than capable of making necessary moves around the trade deadline. As a result, the Ducks will go into this year’s draft with seven picks in the first three rounds. The top selections in each of his first two drafts, Mintyukov and Carlsson, suggest he has a keen eye for the franchise’s needs. However, free agency has been a different story. Ryan Strome and Frank Vatrano highlighted Verbeek’s first free agent class signings, and they both were massive disappointments in their debut seasons in Anaheim in 2022-23. This most recent offseason, he handed contracts with term to 33-year-old Radko Gudas and 34-year-old Alex Killorn.

Vatrano has had a tremendous bounce-back season, reaching the 30-goal plateau and being named to the All-Star Game both for the first time in his career. The 30-year-old winger has always had a willingness to shoot, but he is thriving in a top-six role for an Anaheim team desperate for any goals they can muster. Even if Verbeek and the Ducks don’t see Vatrano as a long-term solution, he’s increased his value and could be seen as one of the top rentals of next year’s trade deadline.

Gudas signed with the Ducks fresh off a Stanley Cup Final run with the Florida Panthers. Expectations may have been low for an aging defensive defenseman, especially for an Anaheim club that needed to rebuild its defensive structure from the ground up under new head coach Greg Cronin. But Gudas has been stellar in a middle-pairing role, often paired alongside one of the youngsters like Mintyukov or LaCombe. Despite not being a scoring threat himself, he’s the only Ducks’ defenseman with an Expected Goals For percentage over 50.

Despite the solid trade deadlines and improving free agent transactions, Verbeek’s most significant move of his tenure came earlier this year when he acquired the rights to Cutter Gauthier from the Philadelphia Flyers. Gauthier was the fifth overall pick by the Flyers in the 2022 NHL Draft and is currently playing in the NCAA for top-ranked Boston College. He profiles as a big-bodied forward with a knack for putting the puck in the net. He leads all of college hockey in goals and is a top-10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, college hockey’s most valuable player.

Gauthier addresses Anaheim’s most pressing issue, and Verbeek dealt from a position of strength. Jamie Drysdale could end up having a solid career, but the Ducks have a surplus of young defensemen and a shakeup of the position group seemed inevitable. Trading a high-end pick from the end of the Bob Murray era could be viewed as a “he’s not our guy” style of move, and this line of thinking is how Trevor Zegras has spent most of his rehabbing a broken ankle while being mentioned in trade rumors. However, this feels like an opportunistic move. Gauthier had no desire to play in Philadelphia, and Verbeek had the unique opportunity to bring him in after looking to trade up for him a year earlier.

Goaltending Pipeline Looks Solidified

Goaltending has rarely been an issue for the Ducks throughout the franchise’s history. They’ve always had a solid number-one choice to lean on, from Guy Hebert to Jean-Sebastian Giguere, to Jonas Hiller and eventually to John Gibson today, Anaheim has been blessed with consistency in net. As Gibson enters his thirties, Lukas Dostal seems to be the heir apparent, with 29 starts in his first full season in the NHL so far. Dostal seems up for the task, but goaltending is fleeting, and projecting a 23-year-old’s career would be speculative at best. The last thing Anaheim needs is to enter its competitive window with uncertainty in net, so building a solid pipeline during the rebuild is important.

Beyond Dostal, the Ducks have invested draft picks on Gage Alexander (fifth round, 2021), Vyacheslav Buteyets (sixth round, 2022), and Damian Clara (second round, 2023). Clara has been stellar while playing in HockeyAllsvenskan, Sweden’s second-highest league. This season, he was the first non-Swede to win the golden cage as the league’s top player. He posted a .913 save percentage (SV%) with four shutouts during the regular season. Brynäs IF is up 3-0 in their first-round playoff series, with Clara recording a .955 SV% and only allowing one goal in each game.

The Ducks have also found a hidden gem in Tomas Suchanek. The 20-year-old Czech netminder went undrafted in each of the last three drafts, but a standout performance in the 2023 World Junior Championship led to him signing a one-year deal with the San Diego Gulls, Anaheim’s American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate. He’s quickly become the best option in San Diego, putting up a .919 SV% and owning a 12-6-3 record on the 28th-place team in the AHL. On March 21, the Ducks signed Suchanek to a three-year entry-level contract. He and Dostal have known each other from an early age, including sharing a goaltending coach in Czechia (from, “Ducks Sign Goaltender Tomas Suchanek to 3-year entry level deal,” The Orange County Register, March 21, 2024).

Is McTavish the Next Getzlaf?

Ryan Getzlaf’s retirement at the end of the 2021-22 season has left a hole the organization has yet to fill. Not only was he the greatest player in franchise history, but his leadership gave the Ducks tremendous stability throughout the 2010s. Leadership has fallen on longtime alternate captains like Cam Fowler and Jakob Silfverberg, as well as veteran signings like Gudas and Killorn, but there’s little doubt the next captain will come from the younger crop of players. Even before Getzlaf’s retirement, I thought Troy Terry was the best choice to lead the team moving forward. However, it’s hard to ignore Mason McTavish’s growing case as he develops into something resembling the second coming of Getzlaf.

Like Getzlaf, McTavish is a big-bodied center with loads of offensive talent. Both are proven leaders dating back to their World Junior Championship days as part of the captain group for Team Canada. However, one of the biggest knocks on Getzlaf was his tendency to commit inopportune penalties, and McTavish’s 82 penalty minutes this season suggest this is another comparison they share. Fortunately, McTavish doesn’t seem to share Getzlaf’s unwillingness to shoot the puck, as he ranks third on the team in shots this season.

Anaheim’s next captain likely comes down to McTavish or Carlsson. While I do appreciate how much McTavish resembles Getzlaf, I don’t think there’s a wrong decision.

Anaheim’s Competitive Window Should Be Soon

It’s one thing to sell a rebuild — it’s an admission that the roster needs change, and it usually requires a lot of losing in the interim. Fans can be sold on mysterious prospects with untapped potential, so long as it means the team starts winning games again. Rebuilds aren’t fool-proof, and it isn’t uncommon for a rebuilding team to tear it down and start all over again before any meaningful progress. With a top-10 pick in the draft for the sixth straight year, we are starting to reach judgment time for Anaheim’s rebuild. However, with a clean bill of health and an extra year or two of maturity out of the young core, I believe the Ducks will be competitive in the Pacific Division.

Statistics courtesy of Hockey-Reference.