Future Ducks legend
Joined: Jun. 2022
Posts: 10,325
Likes: 7,116
First, you are buying into a bunch of rumors started by Frank Seravalli, a guy who is right about the Ducks about as often as I spend the night with Victoria's secret models. (In case you can't figure that one out, I'm a guy arguing on the Internet about hockey, I don't land Victoria's secret models)
If the relationship between Zegras and the organization/Verbeek was really so fractured that Verbeek was looking to dump Zegras, he would have traded his signing rights, not signed him to a contract. If Zegras felt so slighted by the organization that he refused to play there, he would have refused to sign and demanded a trade. He didn't, he signed a 3 year deal. You don't do that when the relationship is so deteriorated that you can't see eye to eye. So he's clearly not so "on the outs" with the organization.
As far as fitment into a system, Cronin is incredibly excited to work with Zegras, and the big point that everyone and their mother knows is that the org wants him to work on his two way game. If you'd watched any games this season with Z in them, you'd see he's become a relentless forchecker. He's fitting the system fine and his defensive IQ is developing fine. He'll never get Selkie votes, but he's also not a liability anymore than his teammates are. "Oh, but what about that time Cronin benched him" yeah, it happened once to send a message, Z got the message. McTavish has been benched and demoted to the third line half a dozen times this season and yet everyone's talking about the one time Z got benched.
"But Verbeek traded his best buddy Drysdale and is clearing house of Murrays guys!" Wrong, Anaheim has ended up with an embarrassment of riches in puck moving D, something we didn't have when we drafted Drysdale. Mintyukovs emergence as PPQB 1 while Drysdale was injured made him more expendable. We.never had the defense first D-man to allow Drysdale to play his game since we traded Lindholm away, he's in a better spot in Philly for him, and the reason why Verbeek got Gauthier is because Gauthier scores, a lot. We desperately need more scoring from our forwards. Zegras was 2nd on the team in points his full rookie season and first last season, for a team who needs more offense, why would you trade away the guy who usually leads the team there?
"Zegras's value has never been lower" and? You're expecting us to sell low on him? We don't need his cap space opened up, we're not in a cup push, and he's signed for two more seasons AFTER this AND we have his RFA rights after this contract is up. We're not going to gift anyone Zegras, he's an incredibly high value asset as he's a great player, more valuable than Cole Caufield, so if you wouldn't trade Caufield for what you want to offer for Zegras, then we're not going to give Zegras up for that.
Slafkovsky straight up, Reinbacher + MTLs 25 2nd, or MTLs 24 1st (~6OA) + Beck level prospect are what it takes to acquire Zegras.