One of the rising teams in the league could be a mover and shaker in the trade market this year.
The Anaheim Ducks are off to an incredible start this season, winning nine of their first 13 games, sitting atop the Pacific Division standings. While it’s still early in the 2025-26 season, there’s a lot of excitement around the team in Orange County, and people wonder about what the team will do next.
The team is littered with top-end youngsters, with a couple of notable veterans to boot. It might seem too early for the team to be making any big swings to push for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, if they’re in the right spot later on in the season, it wouldn’t be surprising if they make a move.
On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to discuss what general manager Pat Verbeek might do in the trade market.
David Pagnotta: I think for Anaheim, they really obviously like what’s going on there with the group that they’ve got, with Joel Quenneville behind the bench, Leo Carlsson has been fantastic. Cutter Gauthier has been great. A lot of their younger guys are really producing. And by the way, those two guys need contracts. So, that’ll eat a big chunk of their cap moving forward. But they still have so much more cap space and flexibility that they can add. So, I think this is going to be another scenario where not necessarily lurking in the weeds, but lurking in the shadows, would be how I would describe the Ducks and Pat Verbeek.
If something kind of pops up and it’s advantageous for them to take advantage of now, I think they’d explore that in terms of bringing in a big fish. Otherwise, they’ll continue to kind of just take their notes, keep tabs on things, and then maybe pounce in the summer. Again, if the opportunity arises for them to make an impact addition, and I think that’s where they’re at right now, this is another team with assets, both from a prospect side of things and draft capital, that they can move in order to bring in that big trophy kind of player to take advantage of.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…
