Ducks GM Pat Verbeek on McTavish Extension
On Saturday, the Ducks signed Mason McTavish to a six-year contract with a $7 million average annual value (AAV). General manager Pat Verbeek held a virtual conference call with local media prior to the Ducks’ preseason game against the Los Angeles Kings in Bakersfield. Below is a full transcript of the discussion, lightly edited for clarity and length.
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**Pat, a big day for the organization, getting McTavish signed long-term. Why did it make sense for it to happen right now as opposed to, say, last week when we spoke to you?**
“Well, it gets done when it gets done. I think both sides felt the need to get to training camp. Like I said before, training camp’s an important part of preparing for the season. We were both eager to get Mason into camp and to get some reps under his belt, not only for the new systems but for the conditioning part as well. So, it’s a really good day for us.”
**And just going off of that, I believe this is the first time that you signed a player to a long-term extension with the Ducks who didn’t have arbitration rights. (Lukas) Dostal and (Troy) Terry did. (Jamie) Drysdale, Trevor (Zegras), and McTavish did not have arbitration rights, so their deals got done during camp. Why do you think it went so deep into training camp for those three deals?**
“I think that’s just the nature of the beast. It’s just the way it happens. I think every agent has a process. We have a process that we go through, and you like to get these things done a bit earlier than later, but they just play themselves out. So, this thing was no different than the last time with Jamie and Trevor. I think this time around, we got it done early, much earlier than last time.”
**Can you at all shed a little insight into how you and Pat (Morris) got this over the finish line today? Because it was a bit of a struggle to get to it, maybe even as late as this morning. Can you shed any light on how you guys pushed it over the line?**
“Both of us have our processes. He has his way of negotiating and I have mine. But I think ultimately, both sides realized that you have to get the player in camp. The player wants to be in camp. And so you work towards compromising for that to get done. So that was basically how it went the last couple of days, actually. So it was just a process.”
**Whether it’s Pat or dealing with any agent, do negotiations often turn on one phone call?**
“No. There’s kind of a buildup. I think both sides can kind of sense where a deal’s going to shake out. I think the best deals are always the deals where both sides are unhappy, right? I’m not saying that we’re unhappy, but that’s the process to where none of us get what we want, if that makes any sense.”
**You’ve got McTavish in now. ‘We’ve got goals for this season. Now, we’ve got everything in place to attack those goals.’ Do you kind of have that feeling now? When you’ve got the players that you planned on back in the fold and everybody’s now working towards a common goal, which is the playoffs?**
“Yeah, you feel good. Now we’ve got some time to prepare with everybody in the lineup, and so that’s a good feeling.”
**On the surface, it seems like a fairly common compromise to see in these situations in terms of term, money, even the trade protection. Can you give us any insight into maybe some sticking points or delays? What kind of dragged this out? Was it term? Was it dollars?**
“No, it’s all kinds of things. You go back and forth on different things. Each side tries to make their case, and so eventually there’s some commonalities that you kind of put to bed and then start working on some of the other differences. But I think overall, it was back and forth on terms, sometimes back and forth on dollars. So ultimately, we ended up settling where we settled, and it’s not really one thing or the other. It was just a host or combination of things.”
**As alluded to previously, there are three of these types of negotiations in a row that have gone pretty deep. Next summer, you’re looking at five prominent RFAs. I know you had spoken at the outset of camp, saying that you might look at how you’re going to approach that. How have you considered that, looking ahead? Because when you’ve got one guy, two guys, that’s one situation. When you’ve got five, it’s a little bit different.**
“Yeah, that becomes difficult. Like I said before last week, we’re looking internally. I’m seeing if we can get some work out of the way before next summer. So we’re looking into that, and we’re seeing where that can lead to with our guys. So it could be a situation where guys don’t want to, they want to wait until the year is over, and we can approach it that way. Or, there might be a couple of guys who will look into it and want to explore it. So we’re going through that process right now and see if we can work some things out before next summer.”
**You said last week that this was pretty much the group that you were going to start the season with and going to roll with, but you still have considerable cap flexibility. How much do you value that? Especially in a year where we might see something like last year, there were sort of two trade deadlines, maybe something pre-Olympic break and then the actual deadline. Can you just address maybe having that flexibility in what could be a pretty active market?**
“I mean, that’s a long way off. But having that flexibility and ability to be able to, in a scenario where we can add or make our team better at the trade deadline, I think that’ll be something we explore. And with this year’s new playoff cap situation, it will be very interesting to see how all of us adjust to the different landscape when it comes to that.”
**When we talked about the other negotiations that you had, whether it was with Terry, Zegras or Drysdale, you said that, ultimately, the contracts became fair market value. Is that where you feel like you got to with McTavish’s?**
“Yeah, absolutely. I think both sides got a really fair deal. If you look around at all the young players, it’s certainly from our perspective fair market value for a player of Mason’s caliber.”
**Were there any comparables that you were going off of to kind of find a sweet spot?**
“I don’t want to get into that.”
**Beckett Sennecke gets another game here tonight. What have you seen from him in your evaluations through camp so far?**
“Well, I think he’s starting to feel more comfortable with the pace of play. When I watched him in juniors last year, he could really do a lot of the things that he wants to do, and I think understanding that he has to push hard and work hard and skate hard the entire shift, that he can’t really coast. Some of the other stuff is getting used to being hit all the time. One thing here is they look to finish checks and you can’t look guys off like in juniors.
“So part of it is understanding the strength. He has decent strength to his frame right now. His weight could obviously improve, but I think he’s got a fine balance right now to kind of keep growing into that body of his.
“So I’m looking for him to kind of improve his details with his defensive game and understanding his responsibilities and being aware and having an urgency for those responsibilities. We all know he’s very talented offensively, highly skilled and has really good vision and sense. But the difficult part is defending in your zone and managing the puck — even though he’s not exposing the puck when he’s in the offensive zone — and protecting it. So those are little details that we’ll continue to stress with him. I expect him to get better in the next week to 10 days.”
**The last two years of this deal are going to be UFA years for McTavish. Are there no-trade clauses attached to either of those years?**
“Yeah, both years no trades.”
**And coming into camp, will there be any process toward easing him in, or is it just feet to the fire?**
“We’re gonna stay on top of it, kind of see him getting up to the pace. He’s been practicing with the Ottawa 67s. Obviously, that’s not the pace of the NHL, but we’ll see how he does. I’d like to get him in for the first three days and see where he’s at. I feel it’s just going to get used to pushing at that pace.
“Joel runs a high-paced practice, and it demands that he get skating, so we’ll monitor that. I’d like to get him into the last exhibition game and then he’ll have three more good practices before we start the season in Seattle. So I think he came in at a good time. If he gets in any later, it might have been a little more difficult for him. But I think he’ll be in a good spot when he gets here on Monday.”
**Can you clarify, if possible, the terms of the no-trade clauses? 10-team, 15-team, etc.?**
“We don’t get into that, no.”
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The Ducks look poised to head into the season with a strong core, bolstered by McTavish’s long-term commitment and continued development from their young prospects. Training camp and early-season preparation will be critical as they aim for a playoff push.
https://thehockeynews.com/anaheim-ducks/latest-news/ducks-gm-pat-verbeek-on-mctavish-extension
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