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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