As I did last season, I plan to focus on each team in the West and look at their current roster, prospects, cap space, draft picks and impending free agents. I intend to dig deeper into the organization to see if the team is on the rise, fall or treading water heading into 2023-2024.

We will begin with the Anaheim Ducks.

Last year's quote: "As a whole, the Ducks are a below-average team heading into next season with more question marks than solid answers."

The Ducks went 23-47-12 in 2022-2023 and finished 32nd overall.

GM and Coach

Pat Verbeek was hired in February 2022 and now has more than 14 months under his belt. He made a few unrestricted free-agent signings in John Klingberg, Ryan Strome and Frank Vatrano. I'm sure the hope was to move Klingberg for a high draft pick at the deadline, but Verbeek was only able to get a 4th round pick in 2025 and prospect Nikita Nesterenko in return.

The five-year deal for Strome at $5 million AAV should be questioned after a disappointing 15 goals and 26 assists in 82 games.

Vatrano's three-year deal at $3.65 million AAV looks a little better, although Vatrano struggled a little defensively on his way to 22 goals and 19 assists in 81 games.

Verbeek was able to add two 3rd round draft picks in 2024 for Henry Thrun and Dmitry Kulikov.

The team elected to not bring back Dallas Eakins and is currently in the market for a new head coach. A front-runner might be the current assistant coach of the Boston Bruins, Joe Sacco who played five seasons in Anaheim. 

Salary Cap

Currently, the club has just over $39 million in cap space available and no dead salary cap on the books.

They have seven unrestricted free agents with an expiring value of just over $11 million. They have six restricted free agents, including Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry, Maxime Comtois and Jamie Drysdale. Zegras and Terry might be bridged or might get eight-year deals for $8-10 million AAV each.

Verbeek should have about $11 to 14 million to spend on UFAs if he chooses. He spent $15.6 million last year on Klingberg, Strome and Vatrano.

Draft Picks

For the  2023 draft, they have nine picks overall with one in the first, three in the second and two in the third round.

Most importantly, they have the highest odds to win the draft lottery and select Connor Bedard 1st overall.

For the 2024 draft, the Ducks have 10 picks with one in the first, two in the second and three in the third.

Free Agents

Unrestricted free agents are Derek Grant, Jayson Megna, Kevin Shattenkirk, Nathan Beaulieu, Scott Harrington, John Moore and Anthony Stolarz.

The Ducks could be interested in bringing back Grant, Shattenkirk, Harrington and Stolarz, but I think they will move on from the others.

Restricted free agents are Maxime Comtois, Troy Terry, Trevor Zegras, Simon Benoit, Jamie Drysdale and Lukas Dostal.

I'm not sure the Ducks will qualify Comtois at over $2 million AAV. They might re-sign him for less or let him become unrestricted.

As mentioned, Zegras and Terry should be big signings this summer.

Roster

Over the past two years, I’ve been able to give players ratings based on their results for a game or a season. All it does is take metrics, like scoring, shooting, hits, blocks, faceoffs etc. and spit out an easy-to-digest number under 10. Elite skaters are around 6.7 and higher, while the average skater comes in at about 6.41. I’ve determined that a player around 6.25 or lower is right at the replacement level.

Goalies average a little better at around 6.5, but game-to-game performances fluctuate more than skaters.

Here is the Ducks projected roster as it stands.

Anaheim Ducks 2023-24 Projected Roster							PGR Total
	LW	PGR	C	PGR	RW	PGR	by Line
Forwards
1st line	T. Zegras	6.56	M. McTavish	6.46	T. Terry	6.6	6.54
2nd line	F. Vatrano	6.54	R. Strome	6.38	A. Henrique	6.53	6.48
3rd line	B. McGinn	6.28	I. Lundestrom	6.26	J. Silfverberg	6.32	6.29
4th line	M. Comtois	6.3	S. Carrick	6.24	M. Jones	6.3	6.28
PGR by Position		6.42		6.34		6.44	6.40
Defence	LD	PGR	RD	PGR			PGR Total
1st pair	C. Fowler	6.45	J. Drysdale	6.31			6.38
2nd pair	S. Benoit	6.33	J. LaCombe	6.2			6.27
3rd pair	S. Harrington	6.32	U. Vaakanainen	6.21			6.27
PGR		6.37		6.24			6.30
Goalie		GGR					GGR Total
Starter	J. Gibson	6.35					6.35
Backup	L. Dostal	6.41					6.41
GGR Average							6.37
Team Rating							6.366
Reserves			Position	Age
Bench	B. Leason	6.16	LW, RW	25
	C. White	6.17	D	25
	O. Zellweger		D	19
	P. Mintyukov		D	19
	D. Helleson	6.2	D	22

The Ducks didn't improve overall in 2022-23 and with the strength of the 2023 entry draft, that should only help them in the long run.

In the forwards, Anaheim had an impressive rookie season from Mason McTavish who showed signs of being a very good top-two center. Zegras and Terry are still the offensive catalysts for this team, but both need to become more well-rounded players if this team is going to get back into the playoffs in a few years. Vatrano and Henrique are both valuable players who ideally would be on the third line with the ability to slide up for short periods of time.

The signing of Strome has been disappointing so far in that he's not good in the faceoff circle, is not a physical player and struggled defensively. Without production of around 50-55 points, he's a below-average forward.

Strome is a poster child for the stat IPP which measures the percentage of goals a player gets on the scoresheet while his team scores a goal when he is on the ice. Strome's IPP in 2021-2022 while with the NY Rangers was 49.5 which shows he was more a passenger than a driver. It shouldn't have been a big surprise to see his production fall from around 0.8 points per game to 0.5.

After the top six, there was quite a gap as the bottom six was absolutely buried in their own end for much of the year.

Max Jones and Brock McGinn were the only forwards with an expected GF% above 40 in the bottom six.

On defense, Cam Fowler had a career-high of 48 points in his 13th NHL campaign. He is the only sure thing on the back end currently.

The team hopes that Drysdale will be back to 100% healthy after only playing eight games. Before Drysdale was injured there were holes in his game away from the puck but he's still only 21 years old and he should get a year or two to see what his ceiling is before Zellweger or Mintyukov are an option.

Simon Benoit became a regular playing 78 games with 216 hits and 128 blocks while averaging 19:21 per game. He's probably not a 4th or 5th defender on most NHL rosters but proved he can be a regular.

The rest of the defense rests on unproven players like Urho Vaakanainen (if healthy), Drew Helleson, Jackson LaCombe, Colton White or youngsters Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov.

They will need to bring in at least two or three free agents to bolster the back end once again.

John Gibson had his fourth season in a row in the negative for GSAA at minus 9.63. It's probably more a combination of being average on a poor team. There are rumors of Gibson being moved to another team, but with his $6.4 million AAV for the next four seasons, it's hard to envision a team adding him without the Ducks retaining some salary or adding some value.

The backup goalie position could be Lukas Dostal's to lose as he played 19 games this year and showed promise. He's just 22 years of age, which is young for an NHL goalie. The Ducks might elect to bring back Anthony Stolarz or find another backup in free agency.

Last year, I had said it was a pivotal one for Comtois, Sonny Milano, Sam Steel, Vaakanainen, Benoit and Josh Mahura to solidify their places in the league.

Vaakainanen was hurt, but Milano ended up in Washington (64-11-22-33), Steel in Minnesota (65-10-18-28), and Mahura in Florida (82-4-12-16) while Comtois struggled and Benoit found a regular role with the Ducks.

The Ducks are guaranteed at worst the 3rd overall pick in the 2023 draft which could jump-start the rebuild. As it is, the club doesn't have enough internally to turn this around in a year or two. The Ducks should be better, but a lot will depend on who they add in free agency. They are still two or three years away from the playoffs.

Anaheim might be the type of destination where players like Erik Karlsson go in a trade or free agents like Damon Severson or Dmitri Orlov could end up signing.

Thanks very much for reading and if you have any comments or suggestions, please leave them below or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15