The Anaheim Ducks lost out on the No. 1 draft pick despite cratering to the bottom of the NHL. Is the worst of their rebuild behind them with some veterans still on the team?

Now that the Stanley Cup final has ended, it’s a great time to break down the recent past and the imminent future of every NHL franchise.

This file marks the beginning of that analysis. One by one, we’re going to look at each organization and do our best to determine the positives and negatives heading into the summer. We’re going to move alphabetically through the 32 teams and provide glimpses at what’s passed and what’s ahead. Let’s get straight to it with the Anaheim Ducks.

2022-23 Grade: D

Biggest Positive Heading Into the Off-Season

The Ducks posted a league-worst 58 standings points, a mark that would, for many teams, represent an F grade. 

However, Anaheim GM Pat Verbeek came into the 2022-23 campaign knowing full well he was going to have an uphill battle getting his team anywhere close to the playoffs. The Ducks were led by coach Dallas Eakins, who wasn’t hired by Verbeek, and they needed out-of-this-world performances from their young players to compete in the Pacific Division. 

That didn’t happen, and Eakins paid for it with his job.

Why? Well, because Anaheim cratered about as hard as any team in the league in 2022-23. They lost their final 13 regular-season games – including 11 in regulation – and they earned the best odds at winning the NHL’s draft lottery. They didn’t win the lottery, but they did earn the right to pick second overall. At that slot, they’re almost assuredly going to select NCAA superstar forward Adam Fantilli. They also have three second-round picks and two third-rounders in this summer’s draft. That’s the biggest positive to take out of this otherwise-miserable season.

Fantilli is likely to join Ducks youngsters Jamie Drysdale, Mason McTavish, Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry and Maxime Comtois as the core of the franchise moving forward. It may take a year or two for the core to solidify itself as one to reckon with, but Anaheim has an impressive group of young, elite players who will carry the organization back to the playoffs and onto deep playoff runs. The pain for Ducks fans has been acute in recent years, but they now have talent they’re not going to trade away, and better days clearly are ahead for them.

Biggest Need Heading Into the Off-Season

The Ducks head into the summer needing to make hard choices on a few of their well-paid veterans who will be UFAs after the 2023-24 season. 

In particular, we’re talking about 33-year-old forward Adam Henrique and 32-year-old winger Jakob Silfverberg. In addition, the Ducks are heavily rumored to be looking to move 29-year-old goaltender John Gibson. 

As per CapFriendly, all three of those players have modified no-trade clauses, but that only limits the number of teams they can be dealt to. Verbeek understands that each of the aforementioned three veterans would prefer to be on teams that can contend for a Cup sooner than later, and the Ducks won’t be one of those teams.

Anaheim already has a whopping $39 million in salary cap space, and they don’t have any retained salary for players they’ve moved on from, so Verbeek has the comfort of knowing he can outbid every other franchise for free agents. 

If Verbeek moves the contracts of Henrique (who will carry a cap hit of $5.825 million in 2023-24), Silfverberg ($5.25 million) and Gibson ($6.4 million), he’ll have even more cap flexibility. That said, Gibson has four years left on his contract, so Verbeek may have to retain some of Gibson’s salary to make a deal feasible for another team.

The Ducks will be moving full-steam ahead with their full rebuild this coming year, and that means they must commit to bidding farewell to veterans who have served them well in recent years. Once they do that, they can add younger pieces to go along with their core of up-and-coming talent. But there still has to be some more pain for them as they strip down the lineup to its foundation.

Bottom Line for Them This Off-Season

Ultimately, the Ducks will be hard-pressed to make the post-season in 2023-24. The Pacific promises to be an improved division, and the Ducks will need all their stars to line up perfectly if they’re to leapfrog five Western Conference teams and slide into a wild-card playoff seed. 

There’s lots to like here, but a sober look at the team means understanding they finished 37 points out of a playoff spot. It’s not going to be easy to overcome the depth problems Anaheim has, but they could be a huge player in terms of trades this summer.

Fantilli won’t be able to carry the Ducks into the post-season, but fans can rest assured that this summer will give the team more high-end talent than it has had in many a year. Optimism for their long-term future is well-founded, but there are going to be bumps in the road for them before they emerge as a true powerhouse in the West.