Anaheim Ducks Rank Low In Corey Pronmans Annual Prospect Ranking
Corey Pronman’s annual prospect rankings have been released, and the Anaheim Ducks rank rather low.
It’s the time of year that Corey Pronman releases his annual rankings of each team’s prospects aged 22-years old and under. This season, the Anaheim Ducks came in at 21st among the 31 NHL teams. A slide of seven spots from last season.
While this is troubling, it’s not entirely unexpected for fans who have watched the team in the past few years. A combination of drafting late, due to consecutive playoff appearances, players exiting the list due to the age cut-off, and the declining play of certain players, all culminates to the ranking.
Looking at the positive side of things first, Pronman does suggest that the Anaheim Ducks have a very nice piece to work with, with former top 10 draft selection, Trevor Zegras. This should be no surprise to many as he’s been rated as one of the top prospects outside the NHL by numerous publications and sources.
“This organization has some good pieces after Zegras — high picks like Sam Steel and Max Jones. Plus Maxime Comtois looks like an excellent second-round pick.”
Pronman also discusses first-round picks who may still have an upside in Sam Steel and Max Jones, as well as Max Comtois. Some fans may potentially look down upon these players, as they’ve struggled mightily in the past season. However, it’s worth noting that the majority of the younger players struggled in Dallas Eakins‘ first season in charge of the Anaheim Ducks.
He leaned heavily upon the veterans of the group and they responded positively. Unfortunately, the byproduct of that, was that the youth movement suffered, and mostly took steps backward, offensively. This could give the team some hope moving forward that these players could potentially see some uptick, either in the first few months of the next season under Eakins, or whoever replaces him after he’s let go for not living up to his development coach reputation.
For the record, Pronman ranked the Ducks’ best prospects as 1. Trevor Zegras; 2. Sam Steel; 3. Maxime Comtois; 4. Max Jones; and 5. Josh Mahura.
Sam Steel
Sam Steel especially may have some room to move. His star has certainly waned from his big junior season, however, he compares relatively well to the recently moved Kasperi Kapanen. At 22 years of age, Kapanen had 55 NHL and 10 points (8G, 2A) games over a span of three seasons. Steel, on the other hand, has scored at a 0.38 point per game pace (33 points in 87 games) over his three seasons in the NHL.
Kapanen did eventually “break out” in his fourth year of NHL play (at 23 years old), and it remains to be seen whether Steel can match this feat. It is somewhat notable that Kapanen in that year was being groomed for the penalty kill, and played the 8th most short-handed minutes of the forwards on his team in that 22-years-old aged season (1:05 per game).
Steel, conversely, was the 12th ranked forward TOI on the penalty kill (0:21 per game) and was seemingly not in the teams’ plans in that aspect of the game. Nonetheless, Steel may have more room to move than some would give him credit for and is worth persevering with
Max Jones
Jones is a bit of a funny one in that the organization didn’t do him a lot of favors in terms of finding him top-6 ice time, offensively-minded linemates, or a spot on one of the power-play units. Specifically, Jones was the 18th ranked forward for ice time on the power-play (0:31 per game), behind notable names such as Sam Carrick and Andrew Agozzino. Players such as Derek Grant and Devin Shore also make appearances.
In fact, of the regular skaters, only Carter Rowney and Nicolas Deslauriers played fewer minutes with the man advantage. Just to bring that into perspective, this is an Anaheim Ducks prospect who was drafted in the first round and was said to have the potential to be the best power forward in his draft class at one time.
A power forward who, at the time of the draft, was projected to be a top-6 forward who had good enough wheels to put pressure on the opposition with his skating and the strength to bully his way to the net. Yet, the Ducks are “developing” him in the bottom 6 as a grinder. Go figure.
Max Comtois
Hells bells, Comtois in his 29 games was granted the 5th most power-play time of any forward on the Anaheim Ducks (2:11 per game). As Pronman said, Comtois looks to be an excellent 2nd round selection, yet he maybe doesn’t have the tools that Jones does. Whether you agree with that statement or not, it befuddles the mind that one player can be given so much rope and another be given none at all.
These should be development years for the Ducks, as they push their youth to improve and help them climb up the standings once again. Why then, does Sam Carrick, and whatever an Andrew Agozzino is, have twice the power-play time per game than one of the Anaheim Ducks best prospects?
For the Ducks to realize the potential in their prospects, they’ll need to put them each in positions to succeed. I can’t imagine that has been the case thus far, and perhaps it is still the thinking of an organization that believes that it’s good enough to win a cup as currently built. Still, perhaps the coach brought in to develop the young players he knew in San Diego, will get around to doing that this coming season.
A Steep Hill To Climb
With the good stuff taken care of, Pronman also discusses the state of the current team and mentions that they’re in a strange place given the average age of the team.
“The Ducks are in an interesting position where the age of their core group of players isn’t old, but isn’t young either. The team struggled, and they lack a lot of premium young assets other than top-10 pick Trevor Zegras. They’re going to have to get a lot of value out of this group with most of these players exceeding their draft slots or else they are probably heading for a significant rebuild.”
To my mind he perhaps doesn’t go far enough, however, that would take him diverting from the focus of his piece. For instance, the Ducks have one of the oldest groups of forwards in the league. They’re aged to be competitive right now, and not struggle as they have the past few years. This should be a clear sign to Bob Murray that the team can’t quite get it done as they are. There are certainly ways to rebuild on the fly, however, it remains to be seen if Murray is the person who should be in charge of this process.
Murray typically gets good value from his draft picks. Across the entirety of the draft, he gets more players into the NHL than is the average. Only in the 3rd and 6th rounds do the Anaheim Ducks produce fewer NHL players than the mean. However, Murray also has a tendency to be somewhat risk-averse and select players who are very likely NHL caliber players, but unlikely to score in buckets. He drafts for safety.
On a team that is filled with superstars, there is a lot to be said about acquiring NHL players in the draft. One only has to look at the Pittsburgh Penguins to see that they recently traded the #15 draft pick to acquire a player they originally drafted at #22 in a previous draft.
Of course, there were moving parts with those trades (Kapanen out/Kapanen in), as well as a lot of hot dogs and a couple of Stanley Cups. Nonetheless, the Penguins were able to leverage their draft picks into Phil Kessel and some cups, before moving prospects (Filip Hallander) to acquire another player they hope to be a top-6 forward.
Traditionally speaking, the Ducks didn’t do that in the time they had Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry in their respective primes. For instance, Kyle Palmieri was traded for Draft picks, not NHL help. Recently, Marcus Pettersson was traded for Daniel Sprong, who was a prospect in his own right and not a sure thing. That, however, is beside the point.
Value in Late Round Draft Picks
Merely acquiring NHL players isn’t going to be enough now that Perry is no longer a Duck and Getzlaf is getting older. They need to acquire high-end talent, or as Pronman suggests, get a lot of value from later draft picks. Chicago was able to pick up Alex DeBrincat in the second round. Los Angeles was able to select Arthur Kaliyev and Akil Thomas in the second round. The Ducks, conversely, had the opportunity to select both DeBrincat and Kaliyev at different times.
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Instead of going for one of the greatest goal scorers in OHL history, the Ducks elected to go with the safer option of Sam Steel, who had yet to break out, with the second of their 1st round selections that year. Instead of Kaliyev, the Ducks took a chance on analytics darling Brayden Tracey who had question marks over his ability to produce away from his star teammates. Tracey was in effect not a bad choice, but he wasn’t the best choice. Kaliyev had a troubled history and the Ducks went the safer option.
In this instance, Kaliyev has gone on to be one of the top prospects outside the NHL, and Tracey has fallen to not even be in the Ducks top 5 prospects. Steel is the Ducks second-best prospect, yet DeBrincat has a 40-goal season under his belt.
Further, former 1st round selection Isac Lundestrom has fallen away dramatically and the 22-year-old Troy Terry also did not make Pronman’s list of notable prospects (he sneaks into the criteria by 5 days). These are players that the Ducks needed to live up to the hype many fans placed upon them if they wanted to continue to stick around the playoff bubble.
For the Ducks to climb back into that range, the players mentioned will all need to take big steps forward. Else the Anaheim Ducks will, as Pronman mentioned, be required to commence a long and significant rebuild.
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