Speculation: How do you feel about the rebuild, and how confident are you in the team's direction?

[Mr Rogers]

Hate to say it but in getting the third line winger max jones vibe from him

who are you talking about?

 

[rlstine]

I'm probably more of a BM apologist than most, but I'm surprised by all the doom and gloom around here.

-I think we might have been guilty of overrating Steel, Jones, Terry, and Comtois as prospects and placing unrealistic expectations on them. It's also hard for them to produce when they're never put in positions to succeed (you could put this one on BM and I wouldn't argue). When you only have 4 above-average forwards, these kids are too often being left to fend for themselves. On other teams, rookies are often paired up with good veteran players to shelter them but guys like Silfverberg, Henrique, Getzlaf, and Rakell can only do so much carrying.

-Having said that, some of our younger guys do actually just suck. Larsson and Guhle in particular are horrendous.

-We have no bad contracts, really. A lot of flexibility in a couple years (Barkov is a UFA in 2022-23...)

-Every team overrates their own prospects but we do have some promising ones for once. We probably shouldn't pencil them in for top roles any time soon though.

For me it's a bit frustrating because I don't think we've really made that many glaring mistakes outside of the Stoner-Bieksa-Theodore trifecta. Our draft picks have been pretty good overall and I don't think anyone foresaw Kesler and Perry both falling off cliffs or Eaves contracting the same disease as Mike Scioscia on the Simpsons.

Then you look at other teams people fawn over for their "great rebuilds" when really it's just lottery picks (or Artemi Panarin) falling into their laps. Everyone's mad when BM is only able to change a dollar into $1.05 instead of $1.10 but lottery teams are finding $100 bills on the ground.

All we can really do is be patient and not force anything stupid; fortunes can change quickly in hockey.

 

[KaseMeOutside]

Disagree about unrealistic expectations on those prospects. They performed at a level prior to arrival where we should have an expectation of them being top 6 forwards. Anaheim has not drafted and developed very many top 6 forwards since the RPG days so the player development should be scrutinized if it continues to be an issue

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

Lol, always surprised at the 'Trade Rakell' folks - the guy is one of the few that produces points but yeah, lets get rid of him. For who?? I'm listening

If the forwards don't develop this year Murray has to get shown the door. If they progress well then I think a year from now we will have an optimistic view of the future

If not its gonna be bad because Zegras alone wont get it done

Steel and Terry in particular gotta show improvement. I thought Terry looked way better at the end of last year but the production has 5o be there

Lol, so if the forwards don't develop it's Murrays fault? Sounds like a coaching issue to me.

Terry has been at the door to go for a while in my view. The potential that was hyped here years ago hasn't translated over well.

our veterans are washed up or not producing as they are supposed to (see Rakell)

The guy is about a 50-point player - is that not enough? What are we looking for here?

I think it would be a BIG mistake getting rid of Rakell. Of the few that produces and yet everyone wants to get rid of him.

 

[McDonald19]

The guy is about a 50-point player - is that not enough? What are we looking for here?

I think it would be a BIG mistake getting rid of Rakell. Of the few that produces and yet everyone wants to get rid of him.

True, but Rakell also regressed the past two seasons and has been accused of laziness and disinterest.

He’s also a UFA after 21-22 and will likely be in the $5-6 mil per range if his play doesn’t fall off further.

 

[Elvs]

The guy is about a 50-point player - is that not enough? What are we looking for here?

I think it would be a BIG mistake getting rid of Rakell. Of the few that produces and yet everyone wants to get rid of him.

Rakell is not a player you build around. This is why we stink. Long term we need better forwards to build around, and Rakell has the value to return the picks/prospects we need.

Yeah, he's one of the few who produces, but what good does it do for us now? We're not even mediocre. We need to re-tool, and trading Rakell (while still has good value) will help speed up the process.

 

[The Duck Knight]

Lol, always surprised at the 'Trade Rakell' folks - the guy is one of the few that produces points but yeah, lets get rid of him. For who?? I'm listening



Lol, so if the forwards don't develop it's Murrays fault? Sounds like a coaching issue to me.

Terry has been at the door to go for a while in my view. The potential that was hyped here years ago hasn't translated over well.



The guy is about a 50-point player - is that not enough? What are we looking for here?

I think it would be a BIG mistake getting rid of Rakell. Of the few that produces and yet everyone wants to get rid of him.

So who is responsible for hiring the coaches? And how many GM's hang around long enough to get to their 5th coach?

 

[Dirk316]

Looks mediocre as BM has always been.
Gathering a surprise of non physical defensive forwards, undersized center men and weak Defensmen.
Drysdale and Zegras is not enough

 

[Anaheim4ever]

I would not call the teams direction horrible but i would not call it great either.
Its 'ok' direction as long as we have madden finding Dmen gems in most drafts as well as the occaisonal Kase/Terry prospects being found with late picks.
I'm skeptical sometimes of the forwards they draft in the 1st but they do find there share of Kase/Terry/Karlsson between the 2nd to 7th rounds.

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

Rakell is not a player you build around. This is why we stink. Long term we need better forwards to build around, and Rakell has the value to return the picks/prospects we need.

Yeah, he's one of the few who produces, but what good does it do for us now? We're not even mediocre. We need to re-tool, and trading Rakell (while still has good value) will help speed up the process.

This is the problem with this team - there's no embracing anything. I've seen some people defend a rebuild, some defend a retool. If your trading Rakell, you might as well trade Manson, Henrique, and any other player that has value.

Looks mediocre as BM has always been.
Gathering a surprise of non physical defensive forwards, undersized center men and weak Defensmen.
Drysdale and Zegras is not enough

Well then, who would you draft?

I would not call the teams direction horrible but i would not call it great either.
Its 'ok' direction as long as we have madden finding Dmen gems in most drafts as well as the occaisonal Kase/Terry prospects being found with late picks.
I'm skeptical sometimes of the forwards they draft in the 1st but they do find there share of Kase/Terry/Karlsson between the 2nd to 7th rounds.

This team is in limbo. The prospects that we thought were going to excel and make the jump didn't. Besides Drysdale, these D prospects that we have are projects. Lacombe, Thurn, Moore(?), Nickl (?)

Kase was decent, he would score goals in spurts. Terry - still waiting on what we saw at the college/international level to compete.

I'm just frustrated because this team on paper has potential, but the product on the ice suffers greatly.

 

[Elvs]

This is the problem with this team - there's no embracing anything. I've seen some people defend a rebuild, some defend a retool. If your trading Rakell, you might as well trade Manson, Henrique, and any other player that has value.

I'm not against trading Manson. I'm not against trading Henrique either, but he's 30 and not on a cap friendly deal. His value isn't nearly as high as Rakell's.

Also, gotta have a couple of veterans around for the rebuild and I think Henrique can be a good role model and bring leadership for our younger players. Then there's also the cap floor, can't trade every decent player.

For these reasons, I don't mind keeping Henrique around. Again, I'm not against trading him either, but it'd be more about doing him a personal favour (not wasting his career on a team that stinks), rather than for the actual return he'd give.

 

[Paul4587]

Manson and Henrique are the exact type of vets you want around during a retool to insulate the younger players coming up. Both are respected vets who work hard and pay attention to their own end.

Rakell is a soft, lazy floater who doesn’t provide anything when he’s not scoring. Every year there will be a couple of months where he’s lights out but then you don’t even notice him the other 5 months of the season. Given his age and contract situation you’re better off selling now when his value is high and signing a stopgap free agent to take his space.

 

[ADHB]

Rakell may be a 40-45 point player but how does he accumulate those points? He had 42 points last season and 7 of them were in the final 5 games after the team had thrown in the towel. The previous season, 10 of his points came in the last 7 games, after the team had thrown in the towel. To me it's sort of like a player racking up stats in the NBA or NFL in garbage time. Makes the player page look good, but not particularly important.

And I agree with Paul... even when he is picking up points, they sort of come out of nowhere. You don't even notice him the rest of the game.

 

[Sean Garrity]

So who do you trade Rakell for?

 

[flyerslducks]

Manson and Henrique are the exact type of vets you want around during a retool to insulate the younger players coming up. Both are respected vets who work hard and pay attention to their own end.

Rakell is a soft, lazy floater who doesn’t provide anything when he’s not scoring. Every year there will be a couple of months where he’s lights out but then you don’t even notice him the other 5 months of the season. Given his age and contract situation you’re better off selling now when his value is high and signing a stopgap free agent to take his space.

you can get those vets via fa while trading manson still..you still have fowler, lindholm, larsson, free agent, and two young d. Thats totally fine

 

[flyerslducks]

So who do you trade Rakell for?

I'm in the boat of keeping him as well unless its a great deal. I don't know how much trading him for a 1st would help...if its a player swap then it could work. Domi was available but idk how he makes the ducks that much better over rakell already. If they can bring a top 6 forward in while keeping rakell it helps a lot. There are options though. Granlund got minny fiala.

 

[KaseMeOutside]

Lol, always surprised at the 'Trade Rakell' folks - the guy is one of the few that produces points but yeah, lets get rid of him. For who?? I'm listening

He has 2 years left on his deal the production has been going down as the team has gotten worse. A decision has to be made soon.

so if the forwards don't develop it's Murrays fault? Sounds like a coaching issue to me.

Who is in charge of hockey ops? Murray has been GM 12 years. List the top 6 forwards we've developed under him

Terry has been at the door to go for a while in my view. The potential that was hyped here years ago hasn't translated over well.

Really? Hes played 81 career games.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

While we haven't develop as many forwards like we do defensemen, we do get talented forwards in trades such as Silf, Kesler, Rico, and Eaves.

Kase was turning out well until we discovered he was made out of glass in a Ducks uni. Ritchie was disappointing.

First round picks under Murray

2009: 15th C Holland and 26 RW Palmieri (We traded Holland. Kase was drafted due to a return on Holland. Kase was traded. We drafted Perreault at 27th in this year's draft.)
2010: 12th D Fowler and 29th RW Etem
2011: 30th C Rakell (Then converted back to wing.)
2012: 6th D Lindholm
2013: 26th D Theodore
2014: 10th LW Ritchie (traded for F Heinen last year)
2015: 27th D Larsson
2016: 24th LW Jones and 30th C Steel
2017: no first round pick (part of Eaves trade)
2018: 23rd C Lundestrom
2019: 9th C Zegras and 29th LW Tracey
2020: 6th D Drysdale and 27th RW Perreault​

I think it's too early to tell about the development of prospects from the 2015th draft to today. Between 2009 and 2014, Lindholm, Ritchie, and Fowler were our highest draft picks. Surprisingly, Palms and Rakell did develop. Outside of the first round, our scouts are great at identifying defensemen and goalies. Kase is the only forward not drafted in the first round of note, which he was drafted in the 7th round.

Larsson is 23 years old. Terry just turned 23 years old (a 2015 draftee like Larsson). Steel is 22 years old. They'll need time to develop as they're all lower picks. Zegras is a top-10 selection and possesses that top-10 talent. He ranked #1 overall prospect for this past year. We're gambling to get high end talent at the bottom of the first, but sometimes those talents have limitations. Zegras is uber-talented that he's banging on the NHL door after one-year in the NCAA. That's why I wanted a forward at 6th overall because most talented forwards are drafted higher than defensemen. In this year's draft, in the top-15 picks, only two were defensemen and one was a goalie. That means 12 forwards were taken in the top-15.

If we use the contracts of Perry, Eaves, and Kesler, then there would only be one spot open to a prospect forward starting this coming season. Unfortunately, health took them away from us. This coming season was when the youth movement should have started to see signs at the NHL level. Instead, we were forced to push up our forward crew in 2018-19 season. We might have delayed or done worse with the development of Steel and Comtois. Thank goodness Comtois got injured to where we sent him back to juniors in 2018-19 season!

Losing talents of Perry, Eaves, and Kesler far too early are devastating to the franchise. We had to sell defensive prospects for offensive help such as D Pettersson for F Sprong and Montour for the 29th pick in 2019, which turned out to be LW Tracey.

So give our youth some time to actually develop to their respective curve.

 

[KyleJRM]

It’s too early to tell. This is the easy part of the rebuild: do as little as possible, everyone’s got potential, get hyped by prospect rankings. The hard part comes later when you find out if what you’ve built is better than what other teams have built. I think that’s why a lot of fans love rebuilds. There’s no failure state. Prospects don’t get you hype all season then lose to your biggest rival in 5 games in the second round.

I’m a little nervous with the relatively disappointing performances of the Terry/Steel generation of prospects. And I feel like I’m the only one to notice or care that Gibson hasn’t been an elite goalie since late 2018 or so.

But overall, we’ve been adding cheap young talent at a rate faster than most of the league. I love how we seem to be prioritizing guys who can really skate. We will find out in a few years if it paid off.

 

[Anaheim4ever]

With how Murray revealed that they are competing for the playoffs in 2021 that makes it seem they did not want to trade Rakell at all, even for the #15.
Does this mean there is a chance now they well have Zegras play with the Ducks this year ? If they were to do that i'd move Henrique to the wing and put the teams top goal scorer with Zegras.
I think there is a good chance Zegras could compete for the Calder and out perform Steel.

 

[Paul4587]

With how Murray revealed that they are competing for the playoffs in 2021 that makes it seem they did not want to trade Rakell at all, even for the #15.
Does this mean there is a chance now they well have Zegras play with the Ducks this year ? If they were to do that i'd move Henrique to the wing and put the teams top goal scorer with Zegras.
I think there is a good chance Zegras could compete for the Calder and out perform Steel.

Zegras would play on the wing before Henrique does. Henrique is great at faceoffs and is our best defensive centre.

 

[Dirk316]

Whatever happened to Murray's pathetic attempts at duplicating Stanley Cup winners?
Tampa basically added all gritty players to their skill Maroon, Goodrow, Schenn, Bogosian, Coleman.

 

[bsu]

Whatever happened to Murray's pathetic attempts at duplicating Stanley Cup winners?
Tampa basically added all gritty players to their skill Maroon, Goodrow, Schenn, Bogosian, Coleman.

Since that's definitely the reason they won..... Not having the best goalie, the best defensemen, the best center left in these playoffs and the best winger in the nhl.

 

[Dirk316]

Since that's definitely the reason they won..... Not having the best goalie, the best defensemen, the best center left in these playoffs and the best winger in the nhl.

When did I say that was the only reason they won? I do recall the prior season they were soft and got swept prompting them to target tough players.
Don't worry your ideal team of soft useless players is almost a reality

 

[Dirk316]

Since that's definitely the reason they won..... Not having the best goalie, the best defensemen, the best center left in these playoffs and the best winger in the nhl.

Don't forget to post more useless trade proposals that earn you respect from Toronto fans