Comparing the Ducks’ Rebuild to the Avalanche

The official NHL Twitter account posted [this](https://twitter.com/NHL/status/1674489157253472261) today, a summary of all the young players currently on the Ducks or in their prospect pool. It made me want to compare Anaheim’s rebuild and future outlook to a team like the Avalanche, who broke through a lengthy rebuild, became a perennial contender, and eventually won a Stanley Cup with a homegrown core.

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The Avs made the playoffs one time between 2011-17. Aside from a fluke 2013-14 season where they won the division and lost in the first round, they finished last or next to last in the division in five of the other six years.

As you can expect, Colorado had many high draft picks. Here’s how their first rounds looked from 2011-17:

2011: Gabriel Landeskog (2nd overall). They also drafted D Duncan Siemens 11th overall, who busted

2012: No 1st

2013: Nathan MacKinnon (1st overall)

2014: Conner Bleackley (23rd overall, never signed)

2015: Mikko Rantanen (10th overall)

2016: Tyson Jost (10th overall)

2017: Cale Makar (4th overall)

The hits are obvious. However, they whiffed nearly everywhere else in the draft. Among their 2011-17 draft picks, the only players besides the core four who have 100+ NHL games played are Jost, A.J. Greer (2nd round in 2015), Will Butcher (5th round in 2013, never played for COL), and former Duck Joseph Blandisi (6th round in 2012). Jost was the only one in that group to play meaningful games with the Avs before getting traded in March 2022.

Right off the bat, I’d be SHOCKED if the Ducks’ draft record doesn’t blow this out of the water. Since 2019, the first time missing the playoffs in seven seasons, Anaheim used first-round picks on Trevor Zegras, Brayden Tracey, Jamie Drysdale, Jacob Perrault, Mason McTavish, Pavel Mintyukov, Nathan Gaucher, and Leo Carlsson. Z, Jamie, and Mac are already NHLers. Carlsson will make it four, while Mintyukov feels inevitable. It’s too early to say for the others, however.

Notice we haven’t even mentioned Olen Zellweger, Sasha Pastujov, Tristan Luneau, Jackson LaCombe, and other 2nd-7th round picks with NHL upside. A couple of their non-firsts becoming core players for the next several years will go a long way.

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So let’s assume the Ducks beat the Avs in quantity of NHL-bound prospects and those prospects playing for the team that drafted them. That’s great, but is there any chance Anaheim’s young players can develop into anything close to superstar producers like MacKinnon, Rantanen, and Makar?

Actually, yes.

Let’s start with McKinnon, the consensus best prospect in 2013. He made the Avs as an 18-year-old and put up 63 points in 82 games. However, he wouldn’t produce more than 53 points in the next three years before producing 97 points at 22 years old, his FIFTH season in the league.

Trevor Zegras may not become MacKinnon. But in his first two full seasons, Z has put up 61 and 65 points. He won’t turn 23 until next March.

How about Rantanen? In his first full season in 2017-18, a 20-year-old Mikko finished with 38 points and a -25 +/-. Compare him to McTavish, who had 43 points with a -19 +/- this year. He’ll turn 21 in January.

As for Makar, he spent two more years in college after the draft before registering 50 points in 56 games as a 21-year-old rookie. The Ducks’ best chance at having someone like Makar might be Zellweger, though Drysdale was in the NHL months after getting drafted and put up a respectable 32 points as a 19-year-old rookie. He’ll be 21 for nearly all of next season.

Let’s add Landeskog into the mix too. Landeskog was immediately thrown into the Avs lineup at 19 years old and produced 52 points. After an injury-shortened sophomore year, he’s hovered inside the 50-60 point range each season. Is it fair to say that Carlsson, another elite Swedish prospect, could reach 50+ points as a rookie? If not, his peak offensive upside is still higher than 60 points/season.

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First, props to you for making it this far. I apologize for this lengthy post, but I wanted to take a deep look into a franchise many want the Ducks to become. With that said, are they on the right track?

MacKinnon took five years to become a superstar. Rantanen needed three years in the NHL before hitting his stride. Makar was an instant stud, but that was after two full years of seasoning in college. Compare that to the Ducks, where Zegras has already eclipsed MacKinnon’s early point totals and McTavish is ahead of Rantanen at the same stage. If either Drysdale or Zellweger become a true No.1 D-man and Carlsson isn’t a complete bust, there’s a good chance that you have a core capable of winning a Cup.

As for the rest of the roster, Colorado made up for draft mistakes with savvy acquisitions. Their Cup team included veterans like Nazem Kadri (2019 trade), Devon Toews (2020 trade), Andre Burakovsky (2019 trade), Artturi Lehkonen (2022 trade), Josh Manson (2022 trade), Valeri Nichushkin (2019 FA), and Darcy Kuemper (2021 trade). \*

\*For what it’s worth, all of those trades happened when Greg Cronin was coaching the Colorado Eagles, the Avs’ AHL team. Without looking into the specifics of each deal, I’d venture to guess that a few prospects Cronin helped develop eventually landed them those vets.

Colorado rebuilt from 2011-17, hiring Bednar for the 2016-17 season. After that, they had two average WC appearances. It wasn’t until 2019 when they added key veterans to their established core. In the next four years, they finished first three times and won a Stanley Cup in 2022.

That means, from start to finish, Colorado needed seven years to rebuild, nine to become a legitimate contender, and 11 to become a champion. Based on everything we’ve seen from the Ducks’ current core and the prospects in hand, I think we can expect a slightly quicker timeline:

\- Miss playoffs next year, then sneak into Wild Card contention in 2024-25

\- Contender by 2026. This is when Verbeek starts to dive into the deep prospect pool to add the “missing pieces.”

\- Cup champion by 2028. (Let me dream)

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This isn’t a perfect comparison, but I think it’s pretty close. It also helps when the new coach saw how Colorado operated firsthand. It might take a bit more time than we’d like, but the ceiling for this team is as high as the Rocky Mountains.

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Edit: I didn’t include Troy Terry since he was drafted before the rebuild began and is an “older” player at 25. But he is absolutely a core player for the Ducks who should hopefully keep improving over the next few years.

by BigTimeTimJim13