Verbeek was asked about working ahead.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe’re looking internally,\u201d Verbeek said. \u201cI’m seeing if we can get some out of the way before next summer. It could be a situation where guys want to wait till the year’s over, and we can approach it that way, or might be a couple of guys that will look into it and want to explore it.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaCombe then signed five days later, which prompted the question of if this quick work could be expected with the rest of that upcoming crop.<\/p>\n
\u201cJackson’s the first domino to fall,\u201d Verbeek said. \u201cWe’re working on other stuff as well, so we’ll see what happens. As last week (with McTavish), things can change pretty quickly, so we’ll just keep getting after it.\u201d<\/p>\n
No deals got done before the season, talks did not occur during the season and now, no deals got done before July 1, opening the Ducks to these outside incursions.<\/p>\n
Time and time again, Verbeek engaged in these battles with RFAs, leveraging the team\u2019s rights for manageable contracts against the salary cap. To some degree, that is his job and just part of the business, and it\u2019s mostly worked in the Ducks\u2019 favor. (Although, one could note that three of the players in those negotiations were traded away not long after those deals.)<\/p>\n
But to the degrees in which Verbeek has waged these wars, and seemed prepared to do with this player, it\u2019s put the Ducks into a tough spot.<\/p>\n
As previously mentioned, the Ducks would be down to $17 million in cap space if they match for Carlsson\u2019s deal. If McTavish had not been traded a week ago, Anaheim would have been down to $10 million in salary cap space, which would have been impossibly tight with Gauthier and Mintyukov still to come.<\/p>\n
Most in the hockey world had pegged Gauthier to come in at around $10-12 million per season and Mintyukov around $4-5 million. With Carlsson coming in at $18 million, there has to be some doubt if those Gauthier and Mintyukov numbers hold, and for those doing the math, any increase would make things too tight for comfort for Anaheim.<\/p>\n
Again, Gauthier is not eligible for an offer sheet, which gives the Ducks more control there, but as mentioned, Mintyukov can be tendered an offer sheet. While Mintyukov\u2019s number is the smaller of the two, Anaheim may end up being in a spot where they don\u2019t have the room to comfortably match on Mintyukov if they match on Carlsson.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere on the roster and the salary cap, it was also reported that the Ducks haven’t been as aggressive in free agency because they didn’t know where they’d stand after signing Carlsson, Gauthier and Mintyukov. Anaheim lost all three of its veteran right-handed defensemen. Carlsson’s right wing on the top line\u2013Troy Terry\u2013is out until December at the earliest following hip surgery. There are other needs on the roster that may end up not being filled because of this mishandling.<\/p>\n
If the Ducks don\u2019t match, they will have lost their 2021 No. 3 overall pick in McTavish and their 2023 No. 2 overall pick in Carlsson in the span of two weeks. Anaheim would have six first-round picks to show for it\u2013two picks from St. Louis that the Ducks used in last Friday\u2019s draft and four over the next four years from Philadelphia\u2013but that\u2019s an unimaginable blow to a team that finally emerged from the rebuilding darkness.<\/p>\n
Verbeek addressed that idea of losing supposed franchise cornerstones for more future promises last week after the McTavish trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that sometimes it looks like we’re taking a step back,\u201d Verbeek said, \u201cbut there’s other ways to address needs in our organization for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
This would be an unquestionable step back. No matter what justifications are said. No matter what compensation is recouped.<\/p>\n
Unless that compensation and cap space are swung for some humongous unseen move\u2013Auston Matthews or Connor McDavid could be pried from their current locations soon\u2013there is nothing that would make losing Leo Carlsson feel okay.<\/p>\n
And really, even if Carlsson is matched, this offer sheet is a stain on Verbeek\u2019s tenure. What remains to be seen is if it\u2019s merely a blemish or a generational spill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2013 This was the nightmare scenario playing in the background all season long for the Anaheim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[2210,233,5292,511,1739,1468,3350,5,4182,3040,3043,2711,285,40,4,3036,4181,56,7173,4185,5695],"class_list":["post-628075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheimducks","tag-cutter-gauthier","tag-ducks","tag-flyers","tag-free-agency","tag-hockey","tag-jamie-drysdale","tag-leo-carlsson","tag-mason-mctavish","tag-mighty-ducks","tag-national-hockey-league","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-pat-verbeek","tag-pavel-mintyukov","tag-philadelphia-flyers","tag-restricted-free-agent","tag-trevor-zegras","tag-tst-los-angeles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116960235554816092","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}