Trade Review Corner: Anaheim Ducks
2020-01-03Welcome to the Anaheim Ducks edition of the Trade Review Corner. A chance to look back at the trades that helped shape a franchise, for better or worse. In this series we will review trades made by current and former General Managers with commentary from yours truly. The inspiration for this series began from looking back and cringing at some of the trades made by former Blue Jacket GMs...and then looking back and cringing at some of the trades made by the current Blue Jacket GMs. Lucky for us, there is no current GM for the Ducks, which means I can rag on all the trades and not have to worry about hurting anyones feelings. So without further ado...
The Good:
22/06/2017 9:08 | Boston Bruins | Anaheim Ducks |
Patric Hornqvist | Sam Reinhart | |
Seth Jones | Andre Burakovsky | |
2018 DP - Round 1 (K'Andre Miller) |
It was honestly quite difficult to find many "wins" for the Ducks, and so we jump straight from league inauguration all the way to the end of the 2016-17 season for the first of two. Seth Jones is a perrenial Norris condidate and the best player in this deal but Reinhart seems to be finding his stride in the league. Although he only ended up playing 43 games with the Bruins, he had 75 points for the Canucks last season. Burakovsky has never made an impact in the EHE with only 27 career points in 165 games played for the Bruins. Surprisingly what really made this trade a win for the Ducks was the inclusion of Hornqvist who put up a 40 goal and 81 points playing alongside Ryan Getzlaf in a franchise best 117 point regular season.
07/10/2017 11:12 | New Jersey Devils | Anaheim Ducks |
Ryan Getzlaf | Andrew Cogliano | |
Matt Taormina | Vladislav Namestnikov |
With one year left on his contract and no franchise player tags left to give, the Devils surrendered their star for pennies on the dollar. Getzlaf put up 96 points, was selected as an All-Star and lead the team to the aforementioned franchise best 117 point season. Namestnikov had only 17 points in his lone season in New Jersey before being dumped off to Montreal, to date he has never had an EHE season with a plus/minus in the black. Meanwhile Cogliano has been a solid middle six forward and penalty killing specialist for the Devils, Blackhawks and Bruins since the trade. Unfortunately, the value of the two is far below that of a All-Star caliber, number one center.
The Bad:
10/02/2015 7:07 | Buffalo Sabres | Anaheim Ducks |
Bobby Ryan | Jake Gardiner | |
Jiri Tlusty | Brandon Bollig | |
2015 DP - Round 1 (Ivan Provorov) |
We're already onto the lost trades, I told you it was tough to find any "wins". The first trade in franchise history did not go well, it would look fine if not for that draft pick. At 18th overall, the pick (eventually used by the Bruins) was used to select Ivan Provorov. Provorov entered the EHE as a 19 year-old, was immediately rated as a top 4 defenceman and has been a top pairing caliber defenceman every season since. It wasn't long before he was trade back to the Ducks as a prospect. Bobby Ryan's play aged like a banana, going from ripe to black and stinky in the span of five minutes. He has scored 20 goals in an EHE season only once in his career. Gardner has had an up and down EHE career, he recently found his way back to the Ducks, posting 25 points and a -15 rating in 60 games since a 2019 trade that we will visit shortly...
09/04/2015 14:24 | Montreal Canadiens | Anaheim Ducks |
Devin Setoguchi | 2015 DP - Round 4 (Viktor Arvidsson) |
A classic lesson in why you shouldn't trade away all of your draft picks all willy-nilly. Arvidsson has developped into a top six winger for the Los Angeles Kings with back-to-back 30 goal seasons. Setoguchi would go on to play a season and a half for the Ducks fourth line before being claimed on waivers by the Blues and retiring after the season. In his entire EHE career he averaged just 11:46 TOI/G.
17/10/2015 8:32 | Anaheim Ducks | Montreal Canadiens |
T.J. Oshie | Ty Rattie | |
Connor Hurley | ||
2017 DP - Round 2 (Joni Ikonen) | ||
2016 DP - Round 3 (Troy Stecher) |
After putting up 47 points in 48 games with the inaugural Ducks, the team moved on. TJ Oshie has had one of the more brilliant EHE careers to date. He went to three straight Stanley Cup finals from 2016 to 2018, finally winning it with the Avalanche in 2018 and scoring 25 points in 23 games during the Cup run. Although he's never played in an All-Star game, he's scored an impressive 310 points in 345 career regular season games. He is coming off of back-to-back 34 goal seasons and has never had a season with a plus/minus blow zero. On the other side, Troy Stetcher won a cup with the Red Wings last season playing a depth roll and does not project to be much more than that going forward. Ty Rattie is the next best player that the Ducks received in the trade and he has 9 career EHE points. Hurley and Ikonen are still prospects although I don't think they will be playing games any time soon. Yikes!
13/03/2016 12:14 | New York Rangers | Anaheim Ducks |
Jacob Markstrom | Andrew Ference | |
Ryan Gropp | 2016 DP - Round 1 (Jaccob Slavin) | |
2016 DP - Round 3 (Artur Kayumov) | ||
2016 DP - Round 4 (Adam Fox) | ||
2016 DP - Round 4 (Matt Filipe) | ||
16/01/2016 16:53 | New York Rangers | Anaheim Ducks |
Sam Reinhart | Michael Del Zotto | |
2016 DP - Round 1 (Auston Matthews) | ||
2016 DP - Round 3 (Aleksi Saarela) | ||
2016 DP - Round 4 (Francis Perron) | ||
29/12/2015 14:19 | New York Rangers | Anaheim Ducks |
Phil DiGiuseppe | Braydon Coburn | |
2016 DP - Round 2 (Egor Korshkov) | ||
2016 DP - Round 3 (Phil Myers) |
In a span of two and a half months the Ducks traded nine (NINE!!!!) draft picks to the Rangers. Sam Reinhart is good. Jacob Markstrom is good now but became a UFA before he ever blossomed into a starting goalie in the EHE (last season). Unfortunately, you will notice a few familiar names selected with the picks above: a 2019 Hart trophy finalist, a number one defenceman, a few highly touted young pieces in Fox and Myers and who knows what the rest of the picks might become down the road. Consider this your first lesson in not trading with the Rangers.
01/03/2018 13:34 | Chicago Blackhawks | Anaheim Ducks |
Jussi Jokinen | Victor Olofsson | |
2018 DP - Round 2 (Kirill Marchenko) |
At the time of the trade Jokinen was a pending UFA with a 68 overall rating. The Ducks in the midst of a President Trophy race wanted to add another piece to their Stanley Cup puzzle in the form of a trade deadline rental. The puzzle piece did not fit. It turned out, it was from a different puzzle set entirely and had been chewed on by dog. Jokinen had 3 points and was a -12 in 27 regular season games. His play picked up (in the most luke warm sense) in the playoffs as he put up 5 points in 12 games. Meanwhile, Victor Olofsson has broken into the NHL with the real life Sabres and is putting up impressive numbers. Marchenko is a solid prospect and could be the cherry on top to a trade win by Hawks GM Thomas Gidlow.
The Maybes:
01/09/2015 1:54 | Anaheim Ducks | Boston Bruins |
Steven Stamkos | Ivan Provorov | |
Nikolaj Ehlers | ||
Ryan Spooner | ||
2016 DP - Round 1 (Jaccob Slavin) |
Its rare that you can trade a star player like Stamkos and get full value for him. This seems to be one such case. My thoughts on Provorov have been detailed earlier in the column as the pick used to select him originated with the Ducks, he was later traded to the Blue Jackets along with Spooner and some other goodies for Matt Duchene (see the Blue Jackets column for more details). Slavin has become a true shutdown defenceman who can play top pairing minutes both in real life and in the EHE. Nik Ehlers is oozing with skill but can leave you wanting more. He's still young and has put up back to back 20 goal season, with another seemingly on the way. Stamkos is obviously the best player in the trade. He has been to four EHE All-Star games, has averaged over a point per game in his EHE career and made the playoffs with three different teams. He's also been (surprisingly) traded four seperate times in the EHE, so...locker room cancer?
05/02/2019 21:48 | Anaheim Ducks | New York Rangers |
Seth Jones | Jake Gardiner | |
Jimmy Vesey | ||
Troy Terry | ||
Bode Wilde | ||
2020 DP - Round 1 (NYR) |
Jake Gardner is back where he started! I think this one probably moves into the loss column for the Ducks over time but really it will come down to what that 2020 draft pick becomes. Seth Jones is very good at hockey. The package received for him contains some mediocre talent and some unkowns. Troy Terry and Bode Wilde (along with Jordan Kyrou) were traded a couple of months later for Brock Nelson. Jimmy Vesey I think is still thought of as a "young player" but is already 26 years old and has scored just 32 points in his EHE career over two and a half seasons (and only 8 points for the Ducks).
21/07/2019 14:07 | New York Rangers | Anaheim Ducks |
Dylan Larkin | 2019 DP - Round 1 (Jack Hughues) | |
2019 DP - Round 1 (Vasily Podkolzin) | 2019 DP - Round 3 (Filip Cederqvist) |
A draft day shocker pulled off by the Rangers. I don't really know what to say about this trade but I think we'll have to wait and see what these players blossom into. Dylan Larkin is a bona fide number one center (although in the midst of a down year, on a bad team in real life). If Jack Hughues projects to be a number one center, isn't it better to just take the sure thing? Not to mention the extra top 10 pick in Podkolzin? But on the other hand, there's also the chance that Hughes becomes an elite player in which case maybe the Rangers can win this one.
Fin.