Ducks Flying in Right Direction

There should be a real sense of excitement in Anaheim for the coming season, as the Ducks have done themselves a world of good so far this summer. It's hard to not be impressed when they've re-acquired Joffrey Lupul, re-signed Scott Niedermayer and added Saku Koivu, Nick Boynton and Luca Sbisa to the mix. Sure, they had to subtract Chris Pronger, but they should have enough scoring and leadership now to see them through to another satisfactory result in the 2010 season.

Fantasy-wise, this team is poised to put up some points. If Bobby Ryan, Teemu Selanne and Saku Koivu can each play 75+ games, the Ducks should be a scoring leader in the Western Conference and should take some pressure off of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, to help increase their totals.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Ryan Getzlaf	Scott Niedermayer	Jonas Hiller
Corey Perry	James Wisniewski	J-S Giguere
Bobby Ryan	Ryan Whitney
Teemu Selanne	Nick Boynton
Joffrey Lupul	Luca Sbisa
Saku Koivu
Andrew Ebbett
Erik Christensen
Todd Marchant
George Parros
Petteri Nokelainen
Ryan Carter
Mike Brown

The team has managed their cap situation quite well this summer, especially with the moving of Pronger to Philly. The team now stands at having 20 players on their roster (see above) at a salary cap hit of roughly $50.5 million. The Ducks also have some depth players that will likely drop into the fold, so they will likely have plenty of space remaining for the trading deadline in February this year. This could likely vault them into a division title and a very good playoff spot in April.

The Ducks have completed the better part of re-signing their major free agents for the summer, but they do have some little bits of house cleaning still to do.