What Was Going On Between Philly And Anaheim?

What’s going on with Anaheim?

This is a fair warning to anyone who stumbled upon this article and doesn’t want to read rank speculation. I can’t prove this. I’m not Elliott Friedman. I didn’t ask my sources in the front office a damn thing. But I pay attention to all the things that come out. I have a good memory and a creative mind. It means I occasionally find a way to connect some dots that aren’t always connected.

That’s what I’m about to do here. I’m going to connect some dots and use things we know to pose a possibility that we can’t possibly confirm. Partly? This is for fun. But partly? It may give us some insight into what comes next if we can correctly surmise what almost happened previously.

With all the preamble out of the way, let’s get down to business.

To start, let’s establish the things we know for sure.

  • Sometime after the World Championships, at the end of May or the beginning of June, William Gauthier declared that he didn’t want to be a Flyer anymore.
  • As part of his initial availability, Danny Briere revealed that the name Jamie Drysdale came up very early in the process.
  • Jamie Drysdale did not reach an agreement with the Ducks until October 5th. He remained an RFA all summer.
  • Trevor Zegras did not reach an agreement with the Ducks until October 2nd. He remained an RFA all summer.
  • Travis Sanheim was nearly traded to the Blues as part of what was thought to be a massive deal between the two clubs around June 25th.
  • Beyond Torey Krug, that trade was speculated to at least include 1st first round pick.
  • On June 5th, the Anaheim Ducks hired Greg Cronin to be their next head coach.
  • In February of 2022, Pat Verbeek was hired as the next General Manager of the Anaheim Ducks.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Brian Windhorst: What’s going on in Anaheim?

Why did two RFAs both under the age of 22 fail to reach an agreement with the Ducks until October? Why did the entire offseason progress without the Ducks signing their young star center and potential star defenseman? The Ducks were thought of as a team that planned to start coming out of a rebuild, and those two players were viewed as key cogs to make their gradual ascension happen.

Was it a genuine disagreement about money? Perhaps. But if that was the case, how come both contracts were signed within three days of each other? Were both disagreements–disputes that were so intense that they lasted all summer–miraculously solved within 72 hours? I can’t rule it out. But that would be somewhat strange, wouldn’t it?

Why did the Anaheim Ducks choose Greg Cronin to help lead a team out of a rebuild? Why choose a rookie head coach if they planned on being competitive from the jump? I happen to think he’ll be great for the franchise, but let’s not run from the obvious. Greg Cronin is a first-time NHL head coach.

Before he accepted the job with Anaheim, he was the head coach of the AHL’s Colorado Eagles from 2018-2023. Before that, he was an assistant coach with the New York Islanders from 2014-2018.

That sounds like the resume accepted by a team that’s looking for a head coach who won’t finish a rebuild… but starts one all over again.

What is this business about “The Leo Plan” anyway? Why are they going to such extremes to make sure Leo Carlsson develops within a 3-year window? Why did they draft Leo Carlsson to begin with, when just about everyone assumed that their best was Adam Fantilli whose uniquely advanced athletic profile figured him to be the more immediately impactful player?

Did they just think Leo Carlsson was the better player? Maybe. But I know people who thought that Leo Carlsson was indeed the better player, and yet, they still should have taken Fantilli because the talent gap was so damn close and he was such a perfect fit. He seemed like the perfect partner to Trevor Zegras.

Of course, isn’t that a moot point if they don’t intend for Trevor Zegras to be on their hockey team?

And if you do think Leo Carlsson is the better player, you primarily believe that he will become the better player over 3-5 years after he’s reached his physical apex and finished developing as a player.

Indeed, if you’re a team that’s just now entering a new rebuild? Then 3-5 years is your target timeline. So of course you’d choose the guy who you believe to begin his true reign of dominance over the league in 3-5 years.

And what about Jamie Drysdale? He would already have peaked by 5 years from now. He’d be 26 years old. What about Trevor Zegras? He’d be 27. If you’re in year 4 with them as your core, that’s a perfect age. They’re right in their prime. But it doesn’t make nearly as much sense if that’s when you’re beginning your ascension as a team, does it?

Just recently, I wrote that the Flyers make sense again. But what about the Ducks? How do you make sense of the Anaheim Ducks? Are they the team who just can’t get things kicked into gear after bottoming out?

Or did they start another rebuild back in February of 2022, when they first hired Pat Verbeek? If the Ducks are just now beginning a rebuild, then the Ducks make perfect sense.

They just traded a 21-year-old for a 19-year-old 5th overall pick. They just picked 2nd overall last season, and plan on strictly developing him over 3 years. They’re one of the worst teams in the league this year, and they are prime contenders for Macklin Celleberini.

They couldn’t care less that William Gauthier probably won’t be a center long-term. They have Leo Carlsson and Mason McTavish. They very well may draft Celleberini. They want Gauthier to be a winger for them long term. A left winger, to be specific.

And where would Trevor Zegras be playing if not for the center position? Oh, right. The left wing.

What’s going on in Anaheim?

It sounds, to me, like they’ve just begun an entirely new rebuild.

Think about all of those additions like Alex Killorn and Radko Gudas. Culture guys. Overpayments to help “develop the kids” as they begin filtering onto the team. Especially important given that they’ve already started filtering onto the team with McTavish, Mintyukov, and Carlsson.

Of course, Troy Terry stays. He means a lot to Ducks fans. He’s fun to watch and helps fans pass the time. He’ll be past his prime by the time the rebuild is done, but his new contract will be close enough to expire that he can become an eventual deadline move years down the line.

And what about guys like Drysdale and Zegras? Pieces of the rebuild that Verbeek deemed insufficient? Well, young pieces like them… they’re perfect for acquiring assets.

And what’s going on in Philadelphia?

Their general manager was hired officially in May of this year, but he was the interim general manager since March, and we all know his christening as the official man in the chair was merely a formality. So, we know whose hands were steering the ship as soon as Danny Briere walked in.

The first thing he did was proclaim that he was rebuilding. The Philadelphia Flyers have a funny relationship with rebuilds. Namely, they don’t do them. So it was a shock for anyone familiar with the team and the concept that Danny Briere was suddenly embracing a rebuild. Frankly, it was a shock that ownership ever signed off on the idea of a rebuild. Did they finally wise up?

Or, maybe Danny Briere’s definition of a rebuild is a bit different from what we’re used to. Maybe, when he says he wants to rebuild, he actually has a much more aggressive plan in mind.

See, the strategy behind a rebuild is pretty well laid out. Often, the plan is to build your future team through the draft. Since you don’t employ a core of currently competitive players, you will–just naturally–be selecting very high in the draft.

You will be doing that for several years, and since you traded the remnants of your last competitive core, you will be making several picks in the first round. Using those high picks, as well as the lottery tickets that are the lower firsts, you assemble a new competitive core.

The process takes 3-5 years because you need your drafted players to develop into guys who can carry the team one day. And don’t even expect that level of player until they’re 21, but more often, 23 or even later.

Let’s be real. The Flyers don’t have the patience to wait 5 years to traditionally rebuild. Especially when the process doesn’t begin in earnest immediately, and you plan to be out of the playoff picture for closer to 7 years in total? Ownership isn’t likely to tolerate that.

Hell, I don’t think the league would like it very much if a franchise whose valuation is around the top 5 of the entire NHL suddenly decided that being engaging and winning some games was an afterthought. They’re probably already pissed enough that Chicago and Montreal are doing that.

So, what if Danny–right from the start–pitched an ownership with an entirely new vision? What if this rebuild wasn’t centered around 18-year-olds who were just drafted, but around 20-22-year-olds who were just going to start hitting the next stages of their development in the next year or two?

A team built around young players and prospects who weren’t entirely fitting in with their old team, not unlike the way the Vegas Golden Knights and Florida Panthers built their squads.

Of course, there was one exception… and perhaps someone who was always supposed to be an exception. One 18-year-old whom they wanted to build around. Matvei Michkov. The Russian whose draft stock was cratering due to angst towards his home country.

But the generational talent who could do what most 21-year-olds can’t, and make a day 1 impact on the NHL.

Isn’t that sort of what’s already happening? When I wrote the piece about the Flyers making sense, I had this to say.

“It isn’t perfect yet. William–if the general manager of the Flyers is to be believed–was not going to fulfill the role of a center, much less a number-one center. And even if he would, he certainly won’t be now that he’s gone.

Someone has to fill that role. There has to be a succession plan for Sean Couturier. Take positions out of it. Michkov needs a partner up front. It can’t be a total one-man show, even for him.

I’m not convinced that we’ll be finding that forward out of the draft. We don’t figure to be picking high enough to count on that, and besides, it isn’t the timeline that this team is looking for.

This is why I think the team needs to copy this Jamie Drysdale strategy with another forward, preferably a center. Find another young, high-upside center whose previous team is willing to deal with them for whatever reason. Let them start as the 2C besides Couturier. Then, develop them into someone who can organically push Couturier into that very same 2C spot.“

I don’t claim that I’m some kind of genius for putting that together. I expect that Danny Briere already did that math in his head. He did that math as soon as he knew it was a realistic possibility that he’d be trading William for Jamie Drysdale. According to him, that possibility was real as early as June.

And if he had that long to consider the obvious thing I’m pointing out, he also had that long to consider the solution. What if he had already attempted to solve the problem?

What if the bombshell trade was even bigger?

What if–instead of just Jamie Drysdale for William–the actual trade was going to include Jamie Drysdale and Trevor Zegras?

Where would we get the assets for that, though? Danny has already said that he’d prefer not to trade guys around the ages of 23 and 24. After all, they’re still young enough to fit in with the long-term strategy of the organization. And he had no assets left to give, except for that 2023 first they acquired from the Ivan Provorov trade.

But Trevor Zegras wouldn’t be parted with for a single 1st round pick. And there’s no way Danny was willing to forfeit the pick that was supposed to become Matvei Michkov for this trade. Nothing was worth losing the chance at Matvei.

So he needed another way to acquire assets.

Hey. What about that Sanheim trade?

The rumor was that the thing was supposed to be massive. There was essentially confirmation that one of the Blues’ two extra first-round picks would be included. There could have been even more. There was something shared by Dan Silver (@dsilver88 on X) that Jordan Kyrou was supposed to be part of that trade.

Well, wouldn’t that fit right in with what Danny was doing? Of course, it wouldn’t fit with the rapid retool that the Blues wanted to do unless Konecny was involved. But there’s something that did fit with the rapid retool.

What if he was supposed to get two 2023 first-round picks in the return of that Sanheim trade? There were others allegedly involved, including Kevin Hayes. Giving up draft picks they just traded for to redesign their roster? That was exactly what St. Louis was looking to do.

What if the valuable pieces of that trade return were going to be shipped, along with William Gauthier, in exchange for both Drysdale and Zegras?

We already know that Jamie Drysdale was being shopped over the summer when Danny said his name came up very early in the process. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that the other RFA they left unsigned was too in Trevor Zegras?

And who would be a more willing buyer for Zegras than the man who just lost his second-best prospect and a future top-6 left wing/center?

We’ve heard already that Zegras is available. Would it be that much of a stretch to say that a trade nearly happened already?

Danny Briere has already mentioned in interviews that he loves Zegras as a player, and that shouldn’t be much of a surprise. But did you know… John Tortorella feels a lot differently about Zegras than that one ESPN clip would lead you to believe.

Many of us–including me–have been begging for Danny to go get Trevor Zegras. So, what if… he already tried?

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Mandatory Credit: Matt Rourke / AP

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