Unless said player is a proven, RH, prime years, 2nd coming of Niklas Lidstrom, no way in hell I am giving up 4 x 1sts for anyone.

We’ll gladly take Lafreniere if you want.

Unless we get lucky in the lottery, we aren't getting anywhere near Lafreniere. Expect this year's Ducks team to be competing for the playoffs.

With that defense and virtually no scoring power except laine Getzlaf Rakell , they’d need to be carried by Gibson

I was talking about the current team, not the one above. The proposed team with Laine and Faulk is a definite improvement. That team would have no problem competing for the playoffs. It's better than LA, EDM, VAN and CGY, that's for sure. However, Laine ain't worth 4 x 1sts, even late ones. Our scouting team is just too damn good for that.

In terms of our current team, our D is bad outside our top pairing of Lindholm-Manson. However, the rest of the team looks pretty good. The biggest improvement this season will be that RC is gone. Already hearing good things about Eakins, so we'll see. I am expecting us to be pushing for a playoff spot. Offence will definitely be up now that players are being given more freedom and being coached on what they CAN do instead of what they CAN'T.

Laine holding out cuz he needs the vbucks funds

I’m sorry to break it to you but ANA is not a playoff team. There are so many better teams in the central and pacific.

I’d take Vegas, SJ, and CGY to all make it over you guys. And most likely both wildcard spots go to the central. Arizona is even better than you guys imo. The central will have Dallas, Colorado, St. Louis, Nashville, Chicago and WPG all fighting for playoff spots. I can’t see Anaheim making the playoffs. You guys don’t have a lot of depth scoring. You have 1 good d pairing. You’re just not a playoff team. I don’t even see WPG making the playoffs this year and I’m a jets fan. But I do see the central taking both WC spots.

"Meh!"... agree to disagree. I would be careful making absolute statements like you have some magic crystal ball and can predict the future. We'll see. As with any new season, there are a lot of "what-if" scenarios that remain unanswered. Despite our weak D (which I think will improve under Eakins), I think we have the netminding to steal quite a few games. I also think our scoring will improve dramatically under Eakins, or should I say "not under Randy Carlyle". We also have a bunch of young kids who look ready to breakout. Steel, in particular, could provide an additional 50ish pts for us this season and we'll also have Terry in the line-up.

I understand those who don't think we're a playoff team as even I think we are a "dark horse" to do so. However, I certainly don't think we're a bottom-feeder and I certainly think we're better than LA, EDM, and ARI.

I can't see you guys being better than ARI, they just missed playoffs last year and they only got better, if 1 team was to get a WC spot from pacific, it would be ARI IMO.

But we can agree to disagree.

Fair enough. ARI road Kuempar pretty hard last season. He was 0.943% in the final 17 of their games and they still only managed to get 8 wins. Clearly demonstrates their struggles with scoring. I don't see Kuempar repeating those numbers, even his season total of 0.925% is way higher than any of his previous seasons. The D still looks solid on paper. Some guys are aging, but it's still good. The main issue with ARI is their scoring. Looking at their current line-up, I see nothing special outside of Kessel and Keller. Maybe Christian Dvorak takes that next step, but, still, it's a pretty weak forward group and significantly weaker than ours.

If Eakins can reintroduce some of the offensive creativity lost when RC was around, I don't see ARI presenting any real challenge for us.