tl:dr version:
No desire to make necessary improvements? Remember our franchise players who carried us in the Twins, Getz and Pears? We have two new franchise, cornerstone players. Whatcha talkin' 'bout, Willis?!
And this lovely beast...
Epic Version:
Three things:
1. We are in agreement with the construct of this team and how we played last year, we are terrible.
B. To be fair, he has shown necessary improvements for the past three years. We have landed two franchise cornerstones going forward with Zegras and Drysdale. We might have a third in McTavish. All three are top-9 selections for the past three drafts. But we actually have identified two franchise players. That's actually making it happen. But franchise players still need a team around them to work. Comtois is finally rising above the rest of the prospects not named Zegras or Drysdale. For the past two drafts, we've doubled up on first rounders in LW Tracey and RW Perreault via trades and eating cap. Ohhhh... I love what we have in Perreault now that we know he's working his tail off on both sides of the ice! Then, we have trade baits in G Dostal along with the three musketeer defensemen in LaCombe, Thrun, and Moore. In this past draft, we might have potential steals in D Zellweger and F Pastujov.
Our health has been a significant factor in our demise with both Lindholm and Manson falling to injuries that sideline them long term. Tack on Silf's physical injury with Rico's mental injury.
d. The front office is the same front office that kept the Ducks atop the Pacific Division for five consecutive seasons and playoff bound for six consecutive seasons. In the 13 seasons under Murray, the Ducks have been playoff bound eight times. So what happened in these past three seasons?
| Original Contract lenghts | | | | | | |
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| Getzlaf | x | x | x | x | x | |
| Perry | x | x | x | x | x | |
| Kesler | x | x | x | x | x | x |
| Eaves | x (TDL) | x | x | x | | |
| | | | | | |
| Playoffs | WCF | 1st rd | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
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- We lost Eaves completely in starting in 2017 due to some unknown illness. Eaves played a total of 9 NHL games in his three-year extension from the Ducks and didn't touch the ice in 2019-20 season.
- Kesler's healthy also started in 2017, basically half the player he was pre-2017. His last season playing on ice was 2018-19 season.
- Perry was bought out in 2019-20 season after lackluster effort in 2018-19 season. The team wanted to move on from Perry and start the youth movement in 2019-20, despite Murray saying it wasn't a youth movement.
- Getzlaf starting losing his step in 2018-19 season.
It's kinda difficult to win when you lose top talents like the four mentioned above. After going to the WCF with all four, there were visions we can get to the next step in 2017 as well as be competitive through 2020.
Anaheim is rebuilding, but their process is a slow one, unfortunately. We have to have veterans to help shield the younglings until they can fly on their own. Building through the draft ranks as a higher priority for the organization. There's tinkering around with the Heinen's, Volkov's, and Fleury's, but it's the Zegras' and the Drysdale's that will carry this organization on their backs for the next decade or longer. We're just waiting on their maturation to come up, which is soon.
It's odd to see the bitching and complaining about the past three seasons when we've landed two franchise players and one more potential franchise player because of our bad seasons. Being a playoff team for six consecutive seasons doesn't often give you a plethora of chances to draft top-10 talent. We're in a freaking rebuild and you want an instantaneous turnaround when we've been lacking prospect talent to carry us.
- 2014 LW Ritchie is a #10 overall, but plays like perimeter player most of the time and has become a niche PP specialist only.
- 2014 RW Kase is a rd 7 line driver, but made out of glass.
- 2015 D Larsson is a first rounder defenseman that hasn't panned out like all the other Ducks' defensemen.
- 2015 forward Nattinen (Rd 2) busted.
- 2015 forward Terry (Rd 5) dominates the AHL, but turtles in the NHL. He's trending along the "Holland Hang-up Hallway".
- 2016 first rounder forwards Jones and Steel are third liners, though, I'm not so sure about Steel being an NHL product from last year's play.
- 2017 second rounder Comtois is the prospect pre-Zegras that has made a significant impact. (We traded our #1 for Eaves.)
- 2017 second rounder Morand is an AHL player, but we traded him for Volkov this past season.
- 2018 first rounder Lundy is a defensive solid 3C.
We've been capped strapped for several season due to Eaves, Kesler, and Perry's buyout. Now, we have cap space today and going forward with franchise players along with Rakell 2.0 (Comtois). We've been in on D Justin Faulk, but he used us to stay on the East Coast. We were set to giving up our futures for a healhty PLD. We're in on broke-neck Eichel, but not wanting to trade either one of our franchise players.
There are many ways to be successful. If we don't get Eichel, then our other route is to stay the course to continue the build. Back in 2003, we nearly traded away Corey Perry to improve our team faster. Luckily, the trade was botched and we ended up far better with Perry than without. It just took a different route. I hate the losing seasons, but Zegras is here today. Drysdale is here today. We have a great defensive veteran unit when healthy. I'd like another top-6 forward or two, but it's asinine to think the org doesn't want to get back to being a playoff team. There's a long game here for Murray. And his best assets are drafting and cap management. Right now, our prospect pool just got much deeper with the 2021 draft and that can only help us via becoming NHL players or packaged for a trade. Why? Because that's what Murray has done before with us.
