Pat Verbeek overcame mistakes of previous Ducks’ regime

For all the talk about the hot starts of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Utah Mammoth, there may be no more shocking turnaround from last season to this season than the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks, who tied for the eighth-worst point total in the league last year, is currently on top of Pacific Division with 19 points in 13 games. What’s more shocking is they’ve come to their success so far through high-powered offense. This is a team that finished 30th in the league last season in goals scored, yet this season they’ve already scored 54 goals in 13 games, which puts them in a tie for first in the NHL.

Credit is due to general manager Pat Verbeek, who took over a deeply struggling franchise back in 2022 and has now put together an exciting, promising team. His major offseason acquisition of Chris Kreider, who has nine goals in nine games, has been a ringing success, and he’s managed to create an effective mix of high-end young talents and experienced veterans.

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed the Ducks high-flying start, and the moves Verbeek has made to create their winning formula.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Where I’ll give Pat Verbeek some credit is, you go and get Kreider for a prayer. You go and get Jacob Trouba off the scrap heap in New York. The Rangers were basically just giving these guys away. Because you had cap space, you could find ways to work them in. You almost make up for the mistake of ripping it down to the studs when you go out and get a bunch of really, really good veterans like that. Troy Terry, another guy who I think 18 months ago it might’ve been easy for them to say, “You know what, we can get a first-round pick and a prospect for this guy. Let’s cash in. Let’s do it.” But I think the situation you would have been sitting in right now, if you would have done that, and traded away someone like a Troy Terry, is what? You would have had just another prospect in your system who probably wouldn’t have been able to work his way through the mush that is the other six grade-A young players you have. Again, I’ll give Pat Verbeek some credit here, he went out and got some veterans and he kind of overcame the mistakes of the regime before him.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…