Ducks have a strong young core – now it’s time for the team to get aggressive
The Anaheim Ducks have a strong young core that includes Trevor Zegras, Jackson LaCombe, Lukas Dostal, Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish, Cutter Gauthier, Olen Zellweger and more.
With the recent hire of head coach Joel Quenneville, now is the time for the Ducks to get aggressive.
Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss how the Ducks can get better, one way is to go get Mitch Marner.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Ducks are the team we’re zeroing in on, and what an interesting team to look at on paper, an interesting young core, because I mean, you talk a lot about having certain pillars in place, right? Okay? Lukas Dostal, who needs a new contract, this offseason. He looks like a pillar between the pipes. Jackson LaCombe had an unbelievable season. I think he is going to be a future star on that Ducks’ blue line. They have some other young pieces there. I think the blue line pillar is starting to sort itself out, and up front, they have a lot of talent. There as well, with McTavish and Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier, and it’s like, okay, with just the quantity of good young players there, one of them’s probably gonna be a star, the other ones are gonna continue to just be really good NHLers. So what do they do, Frank? $38.6 million in cap space? Is it time for the Ducks to get aggressive?
Frank Seravalli: I’d take the owner at his word. He has said, I was willing to write the check for Joel Quenneville to make an important necessary hire because I’m tired of losing, I miss being at Stanley Cup playoff games. For a long, long time, the Anaheim Ducks were really one of the most successful franchises in the league year in and year out. They have work to do. It’s kind of easy to go from 59 points to 8, and I’m not knocking Greg Cronin at all on his way out, but that’s the easiest step to take. The hardest, well, there are two, but the hardest is to go from 80 to 95 to be a playoff team, and then after that from 95 to whatever to vault yourself into the cup contender category.
Frank Seravalli: One step at a time, though, and you’re right, I think one thing about this Ducks’ rebuild that doesn’t get nearly enough credit is I think they’re blue line and defense Corps is so much better than people might realize in the moment. You mentioned LaCombe; he had such an amazing season, but he’s just one part of it, and so I like where they’re heading. I think they need more, and when you look at that cap space, you go, hey, Mitch Marner, if you really wanna get out of the fish bowl, you wanna get out of Toronto, come play the beach. We’ve got talented kids, we’ve got a team on the rise, we’ll pay you top dollar, and you can play for Joel Quenneville, who knows a thing or two about having success when it comes to the Stanley Cup playoffs. So, I think they’ve got a really interesting pitch now as a team that’s taken astride. They tried to go after big-name free agents before. A they went after hard after Steven Stamkos last summer. They didn’t get him, and part of that is that people were struggling; they were squinting to see the vision. I think it’s coming into clearer focus now for the Ducks.