I am not a Predators fan but I would think this is not enough.

As a cheaper alternative, to fill the right side, what are your thoughts about Brendan Smith for Patrick Eaves? I figured the Ducks are looking to fill the right side of the blueline, and looking to bring up their youth at forward next year. Maybe a late round pick could be added, but would that make sense? Would it interest you?

Also I do not think you are able to just put Kesler and Eaves on the LTIR to shed their cap hit anyway.

adding Brendan Smith is like tying an anchor to their blue line.

We need an impact RHD. From all accounts Smith has been a bit of a disaster, no? I feel like Subban is acquire-able and not so expensive that we can't afford him (he's still really expensive for this team). If not him it would have to be someone of his caliber or only slightly less than.

As a Detroit fan I'll second that!

Is Anaheim rebuilding?

Lovejoy will easily go somewhere else for his 2.6m again

You’re not getting subban for that lemme tell ya. Any subban deal would have to be Manson + 2019 first (Ducks) as a base. (Which would be stupid for Ducks anyways) He’s a Norris caliber D

The way I see you have two openings at RHD (Mahura is really at the left point). You can go out and find another RHD through free agency, so there is your impact RHD. However, you need another defenseman on the right side.

Smith is not a "disaster" and is not an anchor on defense. Up until the end of the season where he was consistently playing forward (mind you not his position), he had solid possession metrics and overall played pretty well. The problem this year was that they wanted to give time to Pionk and Deangelo, and they were carrying 8 defensemen on the NHL roster the entire season. Smith was unfortunately the odd man out. I grant you that the previous season he was out of shape, and his play suffered. But this year, when he was playing defense, he played pretty well; well enough to earn an NHL roster spot.

I am almost certain that @saysthemachine would want to bring up the amount of penalties he took this year, but may I remind you that he was playing out of position. He's also a great pro in the locker room, and deserves a spot at a top 6. Anaheim happens to have an opening.

Lastly, as previously noted, you have Eaves on LTIR, which you are not allowed to do unless he is in fact unfit to play. Either you leave him and his full 3.15 million dollar cap hit at the NHL level, or bury him the minors. If you bury him, he still bears a 2.075 million dollar cap hit on the ducks. Rather than eating approximately 2 million dollars in cap for nothing, might as well put it to good use, and fill the third pairing RHD slot.

And I can bring up penalties he took in Detroit dropping the gloves when your team is set up in the offensive zone and just penalties in the offensive zone period. He's not smart a player.

So because he has taken penalties in the offensive zone at some point in his career he's not worthy of vying for a top six spot? I will attach his stats to this post. Please look at his Corsi and Fenwick stats while on the Red Wings; I do not think you should complain that much about his play there.

And at worst case he's their seventh defenseman, no? The Ducks want to bring up Steel and Jones full time, so there is no room for Eaves. Do you think it's better just to leave Eaves in the minors and pay 2 million against the cap instead of at least having some depth option? We can agree to disagree on that.

https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/s/smithbr05.html

I have season tickets I got to see him play a lot

Ok so let's agree to disagree. I only thought given the Ducks' situation, it could be a creative idea. I am looking forward to @TheJoeMan's response.

The Ducks have only once secured a top-pairing d-man via free agency since 05 (Scott Niedermayer) and that was due largely to his desire to play with his brother. Every significant player they've acquired since has either been through trade or the draft. I would love it if that were an option but it just isn't. Even if it were there's only Trouba and Myers as options (Karlsson is not remotely an option) and they'll probably be too expensive.

As for Eaves, okay technically he can't be placed on LTIR right now but UFAs can't be signed and trades can't be made either. This is a speculative exercise. Eaves has played all of 9 games in the last two years and all reports suggest whatever was causing his muscle issues have returned. I think it's safe to assume he's played his last hockey game.

Would Nashville really be that bullish on retaining Subban? My thinking is they may want to move his salary to try to sign Josi to an extension. But maybe I'm overvaluing what his next contract is going to be like. And you're right. the Ducks would be crazy to part with Manson (with his very reasonable contract) and what shouldn't be any worse than the 8th overall pick for Subban. There's gotta be somewhere in the middle that can make sense for both teams.

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/1109315

I think you actually can go and get an UFA. I made a post just for you

Pass on Smith. I don't particularly rate Subban either. He's a good top pairing guy, but not a #1D in my opinion and never has been one. Too many mistakes defensively and too often moves out of position to make a hit that ultimately does nothing or he just misses completely. He's been over-hyped because he was the only good D-man in one of the biggest hockey cities in the world. Won a Norris having a good year in a shortened season where many of the top players came in out of shape (that whole/half year was a weird one). Pass on him and his 9M contract. He's not even on the top pairing in NSH and had a really bad year.



No, just transitioning from Getzlaf, Perry and Kesler to Steel, Terry, Jones and whoever we get in this years draft.



Agreed. I think Manson is overrated by people who don't actually watch him play, but he's better value for money than Subban. Subban is much better offensively, but slightly worse defensively. Both are prone to horrible mistakes. One-for-one, I obviously take Subban, but, at more than half the price, I think I keep Manson + 2019 1st round + whatever else it would take to get Subban over.