Anaheim Ducks: From Minor Trade to Franchise Changer

“Ottawa selects, from the Plymouth Whalers, Stefan Noesen”. It’s pretty insane that those 8 words, uttered at the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, would be some of the most important words of the past decade for the Anaheim Ducks. The date was June 24, 2011, at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul Minnesota.

Teams were looking to shape the future of their franchises, including the Anaheim Ducks, by selecting players who would hopefully build a foundation that would hold up for years to come. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was the most popular option for the first overall pick, while arguments could be made for Gabriel Landeskog, Jonathan Huberdeau or defenseman Adam Larsson. Overall there were some promising players available but very few had “superstar potential” near their evaluations.

Anaheim finished the season with a 47-30-5 record, good enough for 99 points and a 4th seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Anaheim was eliminated in Game 6 of the first round by the Nashville Predators, giving the Anaheim Ducks the 22nd overall pick in the draft.

The Ducks were a bit light on high end forward prospects, and after stealing Cam Fowler in the first round of the previous draft, entered the 2011 draft determined to take a forward with their first pick. The Anaheim scouting team honed in on forward prospect, ranked 35th by Central Scouting for North American Skaters, Stefan Noesen.

A tenacious forward with some size and grit he was the epitome of what Bob Murray coveted in a prospect and, seeing as he was a bit of an off the board pick, Murray felt confident he could get his guy.

That is, of course, until Ottawa took the stage to announce their second of three first-round picks in the entry draft. Ottawa drafted Noesen leaving Murray and the Ducks at a bit of a dilemma. Do they take the next guy on their draft board or do they move back a few spots and acquire assets?

A familiar face to Ducks fans and Murray also coveted a prospect who was still available at 22. Brian Burke, the General Manager, back then, of the Toronto Maple Leafs, felt that his top choice wouldn’t be available at his next pick at 30th overall, perhaps hearing some chatter that another team, or the Anaheim Ducks themselves, were interested. Murray felt confident his next best option would not be selected between 22 and 30th overall and made a deal with Toronto.

The Trade That Changed It All

“We have another trade to announce”, intrigue-filled the arena, waiting to hear the details from commissioner Gary Bettman. “Anaheim trades the 22nd pick in this years draft, to Toronto, for the number 30 and 39 picks in this year’s draft”. Brian Burke took the stage to make his selection, American forward Tyler Biggs, a large frame forward known for playing with an edge, a textbook pick for Brian Burke.

Anaheim moved back 8 spots but managed to pick up an early 2nd round pick to do so. A fairly steep price for Toronto to pay, but this draft was seen as relatively shallow. In drafts like that, it’s sometimes worth paying a premium to make sure you get the guy you covet, as opposed to two guys who you aren’t quite as high on. In hindsight, this didn’t work out well for Toronto, but you can’t win them all.

The Ducks sat patiently waiting for their pick at 30. Finally, Vancouver went to the microphone to make their selection. Drafting a rare Denmark native in Nicklas Jensen. Bob Murray took the stage to make the team’s first pick, “Anaheim is proud to select, from Plymouth of the Ontario Hockey League, Rickard Rakell”.

Murray may have missed out on one Whaler, but he reeled in the other. Elated to have gotten another highly touted player on their draft board Murray returned to the Ducks table, waiting for his next pick only 9 selections later.

The Anaheim Ducks were looking to fill another hole with their first 2nd round selection as their goaltending prospect well had run a bit dry, Murray again took the stage to make his selection, drafting their future franchise netminder, number 1 ranked North American goaltender, John Gibson.

Bob Murray may have been disappointed, having his top selection, snatched from him one pick before he had the chance to take him, but looking back now, it’s obviously a major contributor to the Ducks of current and the Ducks future.

Through the first two rounds of the 2011 draft, there are 5 players who have been NHL All-Stars (not including All-Rookie teams), 1st overall selection Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Edmonton Oilers, Brandon Saad, selected 43rd overall by the Chicago Blackhawks, Nikita Kucherov, an absolute steal taken 58th overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the other 2? The two players the Ducks selected with the picks from trading back.

It’s worth celebrating drafting a single player who ends up an All-Star. However, Anaheim left Minnesota with 2 future All-Stars, taken with picks they didn’t own at the beginning of the draft. That’s not even mentioning the other pick they got from Toronto in this draft, a 6th round selection used to take none other than Josh Manson. I think it’s safe to say Brian Burke would like a re-do on this draft.

The Anaheim Ducks Won the Draft

Looking back this was a landmark draft for the Ducks, potentially even a once in a generation type draft with what they managed to come out with. Having every single player drafted, play at least one NHL game, drafting a 30 goal scorer, an elite goaltender, a high-end top 4 defender, and that’s just with Toronto’s picks.

Drafts are unpredictable, players boom and players bust, it’s what makes the draft so fun in general. Tyler Biggs most definitely did not live up to his potential, never really finding his scoring touch, and not being able to dominate the game physically the way he did in the minor leagues.

Stefan Noesen has found a bit of a career resurgence in New Jersey, after having several seasons plagued with injuries for the Ottawa Senators, and later the Ducks following a trade to the franchise who coveted him during the draft.

While the draft ultimately turned out disastrous for Toronto, it’s important to note that I’d be surprised if a single person looked at the picks at the time and thought Toronto would strike out the way they did. Conversely, I doubt a single analyst looked at the Ducks haul and said: “Yeah, Anaheim just won this draft”.

What Could Have Happened Had the Trade Never Happened

Nevertheless, let’s have a bit of fun here. Let’s take a look at how it would affect the Ducks if Ottawa had taken Tyler Biggs at 21. It’s safe to say that Anaheim Would take Stefan Noesen at 22, assuming everything else stayed the same on the Ducks side (and to keep things from going too far down the rabbit hole, let’s assume Toronto would select Rickard Rakell and John Gibson.) The Ducks would have left the draft with Stefan Noesen, William Karlsson, Joseph Cramarossa, Andy Welinski, Max Friberg, and Josh Manson. A less impressive draft no doubt, but certainly nothing to scoff at.

Where things really get a bit interesting though is when you look at what not having Gibson and Rakell in their pipeline, and having Noesen as part of the team would have changed some of the biggest moves the Ducks have made in recent times.

Firstly, the trade with Ottawa in July 2013. The Ducks traded Bobby Ryan to Ottawa in exchange for a 1st round pick, Jakob Silfverberg, and Stefan Noesen. While that pick ultimately ended up being a top 10 selection, and Silfverberg has turned out to be a good top 6 forward, at the time Stefan Noesen was one of, if not the key parts of that trade.

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Ottawa was coming off of back to back seasons making the playoffs, including a playoff series win leading into the season they made this trade. By most accounts, that first round pick was expected to be a mid-late first round pick. Silfverberg was expected to be good, coming off of a 19 point rookie campaign with the Senators. However, the most intriguing part to Murray was the prospect of what Noesen could be.

Would this trade still have gone through if Noesen was already in an Anaheim sweater? The most reasonable expectation would be that if Noesen was already a Duck, he would most likely be replaced with a similar caliber player, which for Ottawa would have probably been their first round pick after Noesen in that same draft Matt Puempel. Ultimately this trade wouldn’t change much, Noesen never made much of an impact for the Ducks due largely to injuries, and Puempel to this point hasn’t made much of an impact at the NHL level either.

What about the lack of Gibson? Well, Anaheim had another good goaltender who was forced out of town due to Gibson’s elite level of play. So in this scenario, the Ducks would have kept Frederik Andersen, which would mean that Toronto would not have traded for him, and the Ducks would not have been able to select Sam Steel in the first round of the 2016 NHL Draft, further weakening their depth at forward.

While statistically Andersen and Gibson aren’t too far apart, Andersen is, simply put, not the franchise caliber goalie that Gibson is. The Ducks would probably not have changed too much with Andersen as opposed to Gibson, seeing as Andersen had found success as a Duck to start his NHL career, but it would be interesting to see if Andersen would be able to put the team on his back, and drag them to the playoffs the way Gibson has the past couple seasons.

The biggest overall change to the Ducks would be the lack of Rakell however. Rakell has been the preeminent goal scorer for the Ducks the past couple seasons, posting back to back 30 goal seasons and leading the team in points overall last season. Not having a player of that caliber is a massive blow to a team who has been relatively starved for goal scorers as it is.

It’s certainly not out of the question that the Ducks without Rakell would be a significantly worse team. It’s hard to see the Ducks making the playoffs without him at this point with their current roster or the one they’ve had the past couple seasons.

It begs the question would the Ducks have been more aggressive in pursuit of an offensive forward through free agency or trade? Could we have seen the Ducks push harder for someone like Jonathan Drouin, Evander Kane, Max Pacioretty or Taylor Hall? Would they have traded someone like Kyle Palmieri or Patrick Maroon away or would they have put more stock into them?

It’s impossible to know for sure what the Ducks fortunes would have held, but it’s not a stretch to say the Ducks moves over the past few seasons would be entirely different had this seemingly innocuous trade, swapping draft picks not happened.

It just goes to show that any trade, no matter how minor, no matter how little it affects the team at that moment, can ultimately change the fortune of a franchise for years to come.

The Ducks were on the right side of history in this deal, but it could just as easily have been another year with a disappointing forward prospect who didn’t live up to expectations, had Anaheim picked one spot earlier, and that’s what makes sports so exhilarating.