Make no mistake about it, if the Anaheim Ducks this past season were ever tanking, they weren't doing so to kick off the season. Tanking team's don't sign impact players like Ryan Strome and Frank Vatrano to multi-year deals, they instead would weaponize that cap space to take on bad contracts to net additional future assets, which Verbeek DID NOT DO in this instance, therefore he must have expected the team to not be in the lottery sweepstakes when spring came around, but hey, at least he'll have the chance to draft a potential superstar anyway. The reason I bring this up is because the team fell short of expectations this past season, I'm not sure they are necessarily as on track as some of us think they are. There are already some really good defensive prospects that are on their way like Zellweger, Helleson, and Mintyukov, less opstimistic that guys like LaCombe, Luneau, and Noah Warren can become top four guys however. Outside of Gaucher and maybe Pastujov, I don't see anymore forward help coming in the near future unfortunately.

Yeah, we know, but turning a franchise around doesn't happen overnight, even with impactful depth signings. There was some bad luck involved, loosing Drysdale for the season hurt, Klingberg wasn't as advertised, Strome didn't really click, we also lost Vaakainen for most of the year as well. Zegras and Terry didn't repeat last years great counting stats, but factoring in how often we actually left our own zone, the fact that they did what the did was somewhat extraordinary. Eakins being a lame duck, along with Kling, Kulikov, etc also didn't help matters. A fair few things needed to work in order to have a good season, and enough things went wrong to jam up the machinery, so we are left with the 2nd overall pick.

I expect Verbeek has a much better understanding of what he gave up last season and what he needs to do this year in order to turn the ship back in the right direction. We need defense, another top 6 forward is coming, we will need to address adding another top 6 RW this or next offseason, and the new head coach will need to instill this team with an identity.

This coming year will likely be rocky again as more leadership leaves in Henrique and Silfverberg, but the kids will take over the team as we move forward.