Heading into the offseason, Anaheim Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek stated his desire to add a top-six forward or top-four defenseman. Both free-agent acquisitions and trades were on the table. Despite his best intentions (from what we know), he struck out on the former and has yet to do the latter. The market for available players and trade discussions has inevitably reached a simmer this offseason, so with the exception of a rare, late-offseason trade, we can expect the Ducks to head into training camp without accomplishing those aforementioned goals set by management before the offseason.
The Ducks, in their short 30-year history, are no strangers to big personnel changes and trades. During the low-hockey activity month of August, we’ll revisit some of the Ducks’ biggest offseason moves in their history. Let’s start with the Chris Pronger acquisition in the summer of 2006, which immediately made the Ducks a Stanley Cup-or-bust team heading into the 2006-07 NHL season.
The Market for Pronger Was Hot Following His Trade Request From Oilers
Despite a stellar and surprising run to the 2006 Stanley Cup Final as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, Pronger immediately requested a trade from the franchise. While the exact reasons were never clear, the natural assumption was that he simply didn’t want to play in Edmonton. That’s understandable. But it also made him a risky acquisition. If he requested a trade because he was unhappy in a particular situation once, he could do it again.
Meanwhile, then-general manager of the Ducks Brian Burke was building a contender in Anaheim. Before the 2005-06 season, he signed Scott Niedermayer and brought back Teemu Selanne. Andy McDonald was coming into his own as a top-six center, Jean-Sebastien Giguere was a top-flight goaltender, and the supporting cast featured Rob Niedermayer, Chris Kunitz, Samuel Pahlsson, Travis Moen, and a young Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. This group of players surprised the NHL by making a deep run of their own to the 2006 Western Conference Final, where they fell to Pronger and the Oilers, whose Cinderella story had slightly more juice than that of the Ducks. This series loss was enough for Burke to decide that to get over the hump, they needed more. To him, acquiring Pronger was worth the risk and he subsequently engineered the trade during draft weekend in June 2006.
Pronger Gave the Ducks the NHL’s Deepest Blue Line and Immediately Paid Dividends
There wasn’t a single thing that Pronger didn’t do well. Despite his size, he could skate and move efficiently. He was terrifying to play against. With the puck, he could shoot and distribute as good as anyone. Away from the puck, he could get himself into position to unleash shots from the point. Defensively, he used his long stick, physicality, and size to neutralize players of any skill set. He fought harder for superior positioning than the power forwards he played against. He could keep up with smaller players. Outside of his unpredictability, which he argues is a strength, his liabilities as a hockey player were pretty minimal. He immediately became the 1B to Niedermayer’s 1A. Pronger played most of that first season with Sean O’Donnell, while Niedermayer played mostly with Francois Beauchemin. Niklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings won four of the previous five Norris Trophies before the 2006-07 season, but nobody was touching that top-four defense grouping. It was the total package.
Pronger’s Ducks Tenure Was Short but Worth the Acquisition Cost
The price to acquire Pronger in 2006 was Joffrey Lupul, a dynamic young forward coming off a 28-goal season, Ladislav Smid, the Ducks’ first-round pick in 2004, and additional draft selections. Yes, Burke risked a fair amount of the Ducks’ future at the time. But they still had Getzlaf, Perry, Dustin Penner, Beauchemin, and Kunitz, and Burke understood that risks like that are warranted when you have the chance to acquire a defenseman of Pronger’s caliber. This guy wasn’t just a top-pairing player. He was solidifying his first-ballot Hall-of-Fame resume. Those players are rarely available on the trade market.
Pronger lasted just three seasons in Anaheim. Normally, that can be considered a rather short lifespan for a major acquisition. But forest for the trees, the investment in Pronger delivered the return it needed to, and then some. In those seasons, the Ducks made three playoff appearances and won five playoff rounds, including a Stanley Cup and a major upset over the Presidents’ Trophy-winning San Jose Sharks in the first round in 2009. He also played his 1,000th career game in a Ducks uniform, during the 2008-09 season. So, considering the return that Pronger provided, the package offered by the Ducks was more than fair.
The Ducks Can Assemble a Package Capable of Acquiring a Top-Pairing Defenseman, but Will They?
Now, back to the present-day Ducks. In today’s NHL, the starting price for a top-flight forward or defenseman is a young player, a first-round pick or elite prospect, and a collection of additional picks. That is not unlike the package that the Ducks prepared in the summer of 2006 for Pronger. We see it all the time. Apart from the rare one-for-one trade in which a star player is traded for another, it’s the most common trade package when it comes to the movement of star players.
Related: Making Sense of Ducks’ Inactivity in Free Agency
Verbeek and the Ducks are in the enviable position of being able to provide a number of different packages that other teams would find attractive. They have young forwards, young defensemen, elite prospects, and draft capital. Who Verbeek should offer is another question entirely, but there’s no denying that he can if he ever feels compelled to make a trade for an elite, established talent on either end of the ice. After a pretty inactive offseason during which Verbeek failed to address these needs, one should wonder if he is keeping his eyes peeled in the trade market.
Where does Pronger’s acquisition rank on the list of the Ducks’ most impactful transactions? Let us know in the comments!
