Unless Jarry's injuries from this season are chronic/lingering - he's the obvious choice. If something prevents him from returning to 100% then Varlamov/Anderson are the next best options imo. They should go nowhere near Quick - he's done. The younger guys are intriguing but I guess it would come down to what the cost difference is. If you can get them really cheap and use savings to improve the skaters - might be worth it. I don't think ANA is adamant from moving on from Gibson at all, and it would be a bad trade for the Pens anyways.

As for defense, definitely not the same lol. Dumo needs to walk. I think Pettersson has proven he can play top pair and POJ has proven he can play 2nd pair - so to me I think they should just play Smith next year and use the money they save elsewhere.

We're not adamant from moving on from Gibson, quite the opposite, were adamant on keeping him. Our GM just announced three weeks ago to the season tickets holders that he was not going to trade Gibson, he is staying in Anaheim.

Pundits have been asking the question of when is Gibson getting traded for YEARS now, just because some two bit hack who isn't in the know writes a clickbait article, doesn't give it ANY shred of truth.

I can’t wait till Gibson gets moved and these incompetent circus clown Ducks fan finally shut the hell up about it.

I just feel like overall, our defense hasnt been great. Is going from Smith to Dumo really gonna change the results of that blueline? I would hope so..
Also, fair point with Jarry, he just cannot stay healthy though its really bad.

Fair enough. Maybe Gibson wanted to move? Anyways, dont know if the Pens could even afford him at $6.4M so might not be a conversation to be had.

Per Verbeek three weeks ago, he had a sit-down with Gibson to discuss the plan for the future of the team and its timeline. The outcome of that conversation is that Gibson wanted to stay in Anaheim and see this through, according to Verbeek.

It was "reported" he asked for a trade last year, but Gibson and his agent immediately shut that down as false news. It was also reported that Dubas was trying to acquire Gibson for the Leafs, and Gibson very publicly shot that down. If he were that desperate for a cup, he would have gone to Toronto. Again, the pundits love to speculate about when are where Gibson will be traded, not understanding that the teams struggles aside, he likes the team and he likes southern California.

per the article

"I'm not considering moving John Gibson," Verbeek said flatly. "I've actually sat down and had a conversation with him about this. We have an excellent number one goaltender. The hardest thing in the NHL is finding a number one goaltender and I can speak from experience on this, because when we were in Tampa, we did not have a number one goaltender and we gave up numerous assets trying to chase one.

"Finally we were able to draft one with Andrei Vasilveskiy. When you have one, you don't give them up unless you've got another one that's coming behind. At this point, we're very young with our goaltenders and certainly we're not at that stage where anyone can take John Gibson's position at number one right now."

https://www.nhl.com/ducks/news/verbeek-reflects-on-ducks-struggles-previews-crucial-summer-in-anaheim/c-341996140

I definitely agree it hasn't been great - but to me it's more the team defense that hasn't looked great and not necessarily the individual defenseman. Outside of Dumo - I wouldn't say any defenseman has really had a bad year. So I think him being gone is automatically an upgrade. Smith obviously played a very small amount of time in sheltered minutes this year - but he looked competent - and would bring some offense and skating ability. Plus, I'd just have him on the 3rd pair - not asking for too much from him. I think him and Rutta would be a fine 3rd pair and their opposite playstyles could complement each other nicely.

To be fair, coming into this season Jarry hasn't really had any injury problems in his career. The broken foot last year was really the first time he's ever missed games due to injury. But yeah - with multiple injuries this year, especially a lower body one, they really need to do their due diligence on how serious these injuries are. If it's going to hinder his performance from here on out, or leave him open to reaggravating them - it's probably right to move on. Unfortunately thats something we'll probably never know.