'I Believe in this Group': Verbeek on Ducks Trade Deadline Moves, Future Plans

With the NHL Trade Deadline now in the rear view window, Anaheim's roster for the remainder of the 2024-25 season is largely set.

The Ducks made just a pair of moves into the days leading up to the deadline, dealing veteran defenseman Brian Dumoulin to New Jersey for forward prospect Herman Traff and a conditional 2025 second-round pick and then adding blueliner Oliver Kylington.

Following the deadline, Ducks GM Pat Verbeek met with local media to discuss his roster decisions, the team's growth and Anaheim's future plans.

On trading Brian Dumoulin

The decision was a hard one. I stated yesterday that I really wanted to give the team the longest chance, to get through the two games (earlier this week) and as long as possible to see if we could win. We go into Edmonton and win and then see what could happen in Vancouver. So I delayed as long as I could as far as making the deal, but after that night in Vancouver, I decided to pull the trigger on it.

On Dumoulin's impact

He's been an awesome individual, just a really good man on and off the ice. He was great for our young kids and mentoring them, taking care of them off the ice as well. He's just a quality person and I'm glad I got to meet Brian.

He's a leader, a quiet leader, but he goes about his business in a [professional] manner. He talks to the guys, have them over for dinner or take them out to dinner. I think back to when older players did that with me, it just makes you feel special and important. You never forget it as a young player when you get mentored and I think it was important for us to get Brian in here.

On creating ice time for the team's young defensemen

I think when you're a young player, you've been playing and you get pulled out of the lineup, there probably sometimes there's reasons that you get pulled out and then there's other times there's reasons you don't deserve to come out of the lineup. It's puzzling to the players and it wrecks their confidence. At some point, I don't want that anymore. We've gotten to a point here, I'm excited where our team is right now. It was kind of our goal to be fighting for a playoff spot and here we are. I want the young players to go through this. This is an important part of the development process to play meaningful games, to understand the pressure and that we're going to be playing teams that are fighting just as hard as we are. It's very important that they go through that.

On Oliver Kylington

He's a guy that gets up the ice. He plays with a lot of speed and skates very well. A couple season ago, he played very well in Calgary, so I know this player pretty well and felt comfortable in the deal to get him. Especially if one of our defense goes down, he's a guy that we can not miss a beat [with]. We insert him in the lineup and we just keep going.

On Herman Traff

He's a big kid that has some nice skill. He has nice hockey sense. He plays with a little bit of edge and he's a big kid. I like that. He's got an aggressive attitude when it comes to his physical game. He's another piece that we can kind of look at, add to this team in the future.

On future plans for the roster

I'd like our group to be able to score more. If you look at the top teams, they score a minimum of 250 goals, so we're going to look at more scoring in the future. We're hoping that our young players continue to keep taking steps. I think since the break, our young players have really taken a step and actually carried this team. I hope that they can continue to do that over these next 20 games and it'll give us a good insight, hopefully make the playoffs and then good insight for next season and what we need to do throughout the summer.

On other potential trades

Not really [anything close]. We kind of looked around to see. I talked to all the teams just to see if there were things that they were considering and looking at. We looked at a lot of different things...Once I got the Brian Dumoulin trade in place, it was really just a kicking the tires sort of thing for the rest of the time.

On Leo Carlsson

I think defensively he's really solid. Coming back from the Four Nations Face-Off...I think it was a confidence thing in the sense that he could realize that he could play with those players. That game he played in, I thought he played extremely well and was great. I thought his pace was good. It makes me really excited for our future. Having seen that now, confidence is a funny thing. These kids have to realize that they can do it. But I think the other thing with Leo is he's had a more aggressive mindset with his shooting. You're starting to see him shoot the puck a lot more versus pass the puck and that leads to being confident to want to shoot the puck and to score. He's got a great shot. It just frustrates me sometimes not seeing him shoot the puck when he can shoot the puck. His mindset has been completely different since he got back and it's been great.

On Jackson LaCombe

What you're seeing is how he played in college his last year. The ability and how he plays is there. This isn't an easy league to play in. Obviously last year Jackson was kind of in and out, struggling to find his confidence and understanding playing an 82-game schedule is completely different than playing at most a 40-game schedule (in college). I think you're seeing that with Cutter Gauthier too. In the college hockey game, you don't play as many games. So it's an adjustment not only mentally but physically. Having him go through that last year and understanding what he had to do this summer was important. And once Drew Helleson got here, his game just took off like a rocket ship. It just took off. I think having Helleson here, who he's been life-long friends with since they were kids, has really, really been helpful for Jackson.

On Tristan Luneau

He's really grown. He didn't play a lot of hockey last year and we got to the point where we made the decision to kind of just leave him [with the AHL's San Diego Gulls]. We're going to leave him there and we're just going to let him keep going. There's little details that he needs to keep working on in his game. He's doing a fabulous job offensively, which is something that he did in junior and he's just kind of continuing to do it in the AHL. From what I understand, there haven't been many kids since the early eighties or something that have been able to produce the numbers that he's been able to produce as a rookie. So we're excited for him, but we're going to kind of slow develop him for the rest of this year anyway.

On not adding more players at the deadline

Honestly, I'm happy with this group. I like this group. I believe in this group. We're going to look to always keep improving. That's just our mindset here, but at the same time we're allowing our young guys to keep pushing ahead and developing. We're going to see how this group can do in the last 20 games and I'm excited for this group.