Your thoughts on the upcoming seasons roster

Hey! Ducks fan here, been a lurker for the past season and finally got around to register an account.
Most fans of the Ducks were also a bit upset about how Syracuse was handled last year, and it came as a surprise to us as well since management always points out the importance of having a strong affiliate in the AHL. With that said, Murray and McNab seems to have learned their lesson and is signing quite a few players this season that could have a positive impact with the crunch.
How do you die hard Crunch fans feel about how the roster is shaping up?

I don't know much about last years lines, so I'll just make something up here:

Maroon-Holland-Gordon
Deschamps-Bonino-Palmieri
_______-Macenauer-McGrattan
Jaques-Schofield-Kennedy

Guenin-Rodney
Carle-Clark
Newton-Smaby

Deslauriers
Tarkki

The new additions to the team being bolded (even though Holland and Schofield got a few games last year)

While Bonino might be called up in case we don't manage to get a 4th line center for the Ducks, Dan Sexton could very well start the season with the crunch. If Hiller is healthy (knock on wood), Pielmeier will be the starter in Elmira instead of Syracuse and even if he'll be the backup in Syracuse you'll have a solid starter in Deslauriers or Tarkki.

I'm going to reserve my opinions until the season is under way. We have learned from many years past, off-season signing never mean much. One of our last years with Cbus we were loaded on paper, and failed to make the playoffs. Also, there is no guarantee that all or most of these signings will be in a Crunch uni at all or long enough to make a difference.

Also, roster aside, the Ducks have left a very sour taste in my mouth. It wasn't just the garbage coaching. It wasn't just the roster full of rookies. It wasn't just sending our players to teams mgmt had outside ties to. It wasn't just railroading Mirasty. It wasn't just Holick calling out the fans and resorting to childish name calling. It was the Ducks claiming the Syracuse Crunch, the War Memorial and the fans as their own. They literally came into town and restructured EVERYTHING. The environment just wasn't the same. All of the above was just too much to take.

I fully understand the pecking order. We are the feeders for the system. That explains our roster. But the rest was inexcusable.

All in all, for a minor league hockey club in a slowly dying college sports town where any pro sports team (outside of the Crunch and Chiefs) dies a painfully fast death, I think we deserve better.

We are used to losing teams. Come on this is Syracuse. But we deserve more respect than just being an "affiliate here to serve Ana's needs" . This is the first summer in as long as I could remember that I am not even remotely excited about the upcoming season. I am still on the fence about getting tickets.

A quick look at the new signings and current roster suggests we may be a better more experienced team. How much better is impossible to tell at this point, however.... The one thing still standing out to me is what looks like another "soft" team. I don't see a tough intimidating Syracuse type team in this roster. Outside of Mcgrattan the team much like last year seems to lack toughness and intimidation.. Last years team was not only bad but incredibly boring at times. I just hope we don't turn into a team who maybe squeaks into the playoffs but is still very boring. That won't do anything for me as a fan, and I hope this roster surprises me, because much like Mike said, I am not exited yet about this season....

tcw8848 wrote:

A quick look at the new signings and current roster suggests we may be a better more experienced team. How much better is impossible to tell at this point, however.... The one thing still standing out to me is what looks like another "soft" team. I don't see a tough intimidating Syracuse type team in this roster. Outside of Mcgrattan the team much like last year seems to lack toughness and intimidation.. Last years team was not only bad but incredibly boring at times. I just hope we don't turn into a team who maybe squeaks into the playoffs but is still very boring. That won't do anything for me as a fan, and I hope this roster surprises me, because much like Mike said, I am not exited yet about this season....

I for one am excited for this upcomming season but I always am because I love hockey. The Ducks have signed a lot of very interesting and good players that should play for the Crunch. It is hard to say who will be here or who will not but either way it should be a very good team. Would still like to see one more major signing but if not that is good as well.

As for the toughness don't take this wrong but Crunch fans need to get away from this mentality as I want to see a Calder Cup won here in the Cuse and its nice to have fights and great entertainment but my main goal is to see a long playoff push and a championship. Bingo won it last year and they had no true enforcer. I beleive Cody Bass was their top penalty guy with just over 110 PM's. They were also the lowest penalized team in the east last seaon. The Crunch had over 200 more PM's as a team then Bingo.

Also There very well could be 2 tough guys on the team this season in McGrattan and JF Jacques. If neither are here Clark was a decent tough guy and would not mind seeing Kurtz back either. It should be an interesting seaon one way or the other. If the team is bad then it will not be good but if they start out good and get better it could be a fun ride. Only time will tell on this season.

warlockmb wrote:

Also There very well could be 2 tough guys on the team this season in McGrattan and JF Jacques. If neither are here Clark was a decent tough guy and would not mind seeing Kurtz back either. It should be an interesting seaon one way or the other. If the team is bad then it will not be good but if they start out good and get better it could be a fun ride. Only time will tell on this season.

That would seem likely, yes. We already have Parros in Anaheim so you will definitely get to keep one of them, and pretty likely both.

Ryan-Getzlaf-Perry
Blake-Koivu-Selanne
McMillan-Cogliano-Smith Pelly
Beleskey-______-Parros
Sexton


Visnovsky-Lydman
Fowler-Sbisa
Foster-Beauchemin
Brookbank

Hiller
Ellis

This is a good guess to how next years lineup will look for the Ducks, and Murray has stated that he's trying to find a good face off man to center the 4th line so hopefully you will get to keep Bonino for most of the year. In case Maroon or someone else has a great camp, Beleskey or Sexton are likely to be sent down eventually. It's likely that two of Rodney, Carle and Smaby get a few games early in case Lydman and Visnovsky is not ready for the start of the season though, and also a 13th forward while Beleskey is out.
With at least one good goalie on the roster and all of last years rookies having a season under their belt I would be really surprised in the team can't get off to a significantly better start this upcoming season.

While last year was a disaster, what I can say in Ducks defense is that we did not have any affiliate in the AHL the previous year, wich doesn't excuse why we didn't get you a goalie earlier in the season, but it does explain why we didn't have any quality AHL vets in the system or even a coaching staff. According to Ducks management we spent alot more money on Syracuse last year than the affiliation fee could cover wich is why they told Dolgon he had to pay himself to get quality veterans, and I would guess alot of those costs were costs to get our own operation up and running there since we seem way more willing to spend money for you this off season with the addition of two assistants and the newly aquired players. Ducks management want to win in the AHL too, so I really doubt players will be signed or traded for just to be loaned to another AHL franchise this year.