According to multiple reports, the Anaheim Ducks may be ready to move Trevor Zegras. If that comes to pass, would he be a fit in Detroit?

On the evening of January of Monday January 8th, just as the state of Michigan was turning its attention to the National Championship Game in Houston, the Anaheim Ducks and Philadelphia Flyers rocked the hockey world when the Flyers swapped prized prospect Cutter Gauthier (recently named the top forward at the World Junior) for 21-year-old defenseman Jamie Drysdale.

Reports soon surfaced that Gauthier—currently a sophomore at Boston College—had informed Philadelphia brass that he did not intend to sign there and wanted to be traded.  Considering that context, Philadelphia did well to get a young and promising d-man with some NHL experience already under his belt.

However, with Gauthier (the fifth overall pick at the 2022 Draft) now in the fold, the Ducks have a glut of young forward talent in the form of Leo Carlsson (second overall in 2023), Mason McTavish (third overall in 2021), and Trevor Zegras (ninth overall in 2019).

Now, further reports have emerged suggesting that Anaheim may be ready to move on from Zegras.  The Ducks have already moved Zegras from center to the wing (perhaps a hint at their perception of his long-term value), and GM Pat Verbeek (who went to Anaheim after working under Steve Yzerman in both Tampa and Detroit) took over the team in 2022, which is to say he did not select him in the draft and may not perceive him as part of the next contending Duck team.

Complicating matters is the fact that just days after these reports surfaced, Zegras broke his ankle after an awkward fall against the Nashville Predators, sidelining him for six to eight weeks.  The injury makes it more likely that if a deal is coming, that trade happens this summer rather than in the run-up to the trade deadline.

With that said, as much as a broken ankle is a serious (and I'm sure painful) injury, it shouldn't have any serious long-term impact on a potential Zegras trade.  A team acquiring him isn't doing so as a rental for an immediate playoff push; that team would be interested in Zegras as a long-term piece in their bid for Cup contention.

The Rumor

The most substantive indication that Zegras may be on the move came from Daily Faceoff's Frank Seravalli, who said in January, "I don't know that many people believe that Trevor Zegras meshes with the ultimate view of how Pat Verbeek wants to see the Anaheim Ducks play."

Between Seravalli's reputation as a reporter and the context of the Ducks' relative abundance of young skilled forwards (to the extent that a team can ever have too many of those), it feels safe to assume this is more than just hearsay and that there is reasonable heft to the report.

The Player

Zegras is the NHL's embodiment of youthful creativity.  He cemented this status during his rookie year, when he flipped a lacrosse-style pass over the net to set up a Sonny Milano goal on an otherwise sleepy night in Buffalo in what became known as "the Dish-igan."

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QAIDnaYGpM[/embed]

He reinforced that reputation when, days later, John Tortorella (then working as a pundit for ESPN) used his platform to suggest that the play proved that hockey had "drifted so far away from what the game should be."

Tortorella's protestations did nothing to stifle Zegras' creativity, however, and he continues to dazzle the league with his slight of hand.  This season, he and Connor Bedard are the only two players to pull off a Michigan.

Before his injury, Zegras was in the midst of a difficult season, having scored just seven points in 20 games, a far cry from the 61 and 65 he put up in his first two full seasons in the NHL.  While that can be explained at least in part by an abbreviated preseason due to a contract stand-off and a general acclimation period to new defensive-minded head coach in Greg Cronin, there are still legitimate questions to be asked of Zegras' long-term offensive ceiling.

Before playing one year at Boston University, Zegras was a central figure on a world-destroying, record-setting team at the U.S. National Team Development Program, featuring soon-to-be NHL stars like Jack Hughes, Cole Caufield, and Matt Boldy. A central question in assessing whether Zegras makes sense for the Red Wings and the appropriate cost for acquiring him is whether a more accurate peer for him is Hughes (a franchise center) or Caufield and Boldy (quality scoring wingers who have yet to reach their offensive peaks, but not quite to Hughes' superstar level).

Because of his creative flair, Zegras faces questions as to whether his offensive game is more flash than substance.  This season's offensive struggles would seem to add some degree of fuel to that fire, but I'd be inclined not to read too much into those numbers because of the extenuating circumstances of his contract dispute and Cronin's arrival (along with the more general context of Anaheim's apparent ambivalence about his long-term fit).

In fact, I would argue that the idea that Zegras' creativity suggests a lack of substance represents the imposition of a false tradeoff between style and efficiency.  The underlying numbers suggest that he is among the best play-drivers on a team that very much struggles in that department.  

Among Ducks skaters who've played 100+ minutes this year, Zegras is third by on-ice expected goal share (per MoneyPuck).  When he's on the ice, Anaheim earns 57.6% of the expected goals; when he isn't, that number falls to 39.1%.  Of course, Zegras is never going to be a checking line workhorse, but those numbers suggest he's far from a flash-over-substance defensive black hole.

The Cost

The Drysdale-for-Gauthier deal the Ducks just made offers a decent template for estimating what the haul for Zegras might look like.  Presumably, Anaheim—presently third from the bottom in the Western Conference—will want futures in return for Zegras and, given the context for getting rid of him, it would also seem to follow that the Ducks would prefer a return featuring a defenseman prospect.

From a Red Wings perspective, that would seem to imply that a player like Jonatan Berggren, who has been featured in trade rumors already this season, would not likely make sense as the centerpiece of a trade package.  At the top end of the Red Wings defensive prospect pool sit Simon Edvinsson and Axel Sandin Pellikka.  Either could likely represent the focal point of as good a return as Anaheim would reasonably expect, but both figure to be central to Detroit's long-term plans.  As such, it may not make a ton of sense to part with either in pursuit of some high-end skill up front.

Does it Make Sense?

The obvious answer here is it depends on the cost. 

If indeed Zegras does move at the upcoming Draft or at some point over the upcoming summer, it's not hard to picture a scenario in which his youth and upside command an exorbitant return, nor one in which the knowledge that the Ducks don't view him as part of their future leaves them with a paltry return.  In the latter scenario, of course, it would make sense for Detroit to be interested.

Fundamentally, the case for swinging a deal for Zegras rests on the idea that he embodies the kind of high-end offensive talent the Red Wings weren't able to acquire through lottery luck and that seldom comes available on the free agent or trade market.

From that point, the question of his relative worth then depends on whether (as stated above) he tends more toward Hughes as a franchise center or Boldy and Caufield as a productive but not quite as impactful winger.  Either scenario could be beneficial for Detroit, and the Red Wings have a strong and stable arsenal down the middle in Dylan Larkin, J.T. Compher, and Andrew Copp with future reinforcements in Nate Danielson and Marco Kasper.  As such, it's not as though Zegras would have to play center for that elite skill to be a boon for Detroit.

Still, there's at least some reason to believe Zegras is not the sort of player the Red Wings would covet.  After all, Verbeek came from the Yzerman regime to run the Ducks, and if Verbeek is disenchanted by Zegras' style and fit, that might suggest that Detroit would have the same reaction.

In the end, Zegras is nothing if not an intriguing and exciting potential trade target, but whether he would truly make sense for and fit in with the Red Wings' long-term project remains to be seen.

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