Remaining Roster Questions: How Will the Ducks Manage Carrying Eight Defensemen on their Roster?

Season-opening rosters from all 32 NHL clubs needed to be salary-cap compliant by Monday, Oct. 7, at 2 pm PST.

Ducks Claim James Reimer off Waivers

In anticipation, teams with non-waiver-exempt players placed the pieces they desired to reassign to the AHL on waivers Sunday. Several players were claimed off the waiver wire on Monday, and 23-player rosters (maximum) were submitted to league offices.

The Anaheim Ducks will enter the 2024-25 season with a 23-player roster consisting of 13 forwards, eight defensemen, and three goaltenders (one injured).

Now that the opening roster is set, significant questions face the Ducks front office, coaching staff, and players in terms of the roster to begin their season. Perhaps the biggest question lies on the blueline and how the coaching staff plans to rotate their d-corps.

The Ducks' season-opening roster will have eight NHL defensemen: Radko Gudas, Brian Dumoulin, Cam Fowler, Urho Vaakanainen, Jackson LaCombe, Olen Zellweger, Pavel Mintyukov, and Tristan Luneau.

Only five to seven of those eight players will suit up for the Ducks on a nightly basis. The Ducks coaching staff didn't experiment with any more or less than six defensemen throughout the six-game pre-season, so that trend will likely continue, and two of the eight defensemen will be scratched in the earliest portion of the season.

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Tristan Luneau (20) may be considered the biggest surprise to make the opening roster in Anaheim. He last played a regular season hockey game, at any level, on Dec. 7, having since endured an elongated recovery from a knee infection en route to the 2024 World Junior Championship in Sweden.

"Tristan is in a process of getting timing, game speed, and decision-making built (back) into his DNA," Ducks head coach Greg Cronin said. "A kid who was out most of the year just needs experience."

Luneau played in a team-leading four pre-season games, featuring on the power play, notching a pair of assists, and displaying explosiveness, offensive determination, and enough sound defensive principles to impress management and earn an opening roster spot and likely a spot in the opening night lineup if the end of pre-season and practice sessions since are any indication.

From a bird's eye view, the only nightly lineup locks on the blueline are, in all likelihood, Gudas, Fowler, Dumoulin, and LaCombe.

Mintyukov (20) played in two pre-season games after spending most of camp in a red non-contact jersey with a lower-body injury and having missed the team's final eight games in 2023-24 with a bone bruise. The coaching staff may deem it necessary for the sophomore defenseman to receive an occasional night off early in the season.

Zellweger (21) played in two pre-season games this exhibition season and played 26 games for the Ducks in 2023-24. Though he finished the season as a fixture in the Ducks' nightly lineup, it seems clear he didn't display enough throughout training camp to seize control of that role for himself to start 2024-25.

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For the first time in his NHL career, Urho Vaakanainen remained healthy for an entire season and suited up for 68 games in the 2023-24 season. Unfortunately for him, the Ducks employ a stable of talented, young, hungry defenders who have likely forced him down the depth chart.

With a fair amount of uncertainty surrounding the four aforementioned defensemen, a rotation based on performance and health between them is a logical solution in the early stretch of the 2024-25 campaign.

Cam Fowler (32) and the Ducks have reportedly had discussions on "what his future could look like" and that he's willing to expand his four-team trade list to influence a potential trade. If all the young defensemen perform well out of the gates this season, a logjam on the team's blueline could be relieved if a Fowler trade were to manifest.

"Fowler has a lot of respect around the league," Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported. "There will be interest. I don’t think anybody will be surprised if sometime this season Cam Fowler is elsewhere."

With Zellweger (WHL), Mintyukov (OHL), and Luneau (QMJHL) all on the Ducks roster simultaneously, the Ducks will now deploy all three CHL league defensemen of the year award winners from the 2022-23 season. The bright future on the Ducks blueline could soon become the bright present if all seize their opportunities in the upcoming season.

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