{"id":337637,"date":"2026-05-20T08:03:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T02:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=337637"},"modified":"2026-05-20T08:03:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T02:33:34","slug":"2-geese-trade-candidates-after-2nd-round-loss-to-golden-knights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/2-geese-trade-candidates-after-2nd-round-loss-to-golden-knights\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Geese trade candidates after 2nd round loss to Golden Knights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-3809449\">\n<p>The Anaheim Geese have loads of things to construct on after their second-round elimination by the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights. Anaheim defeated the back-to-back Stanley Cup Finalists, the Edmonton Oilers, in the primary round, which is not any small feat with their two superstars. The Geese are still a really young team as they head into the 2026 offseason, but two of their brightest young players, Olen Zellweger and Mason McTavish, are trade candidates after <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NHLRumourReport\/status\/2056117554112758207\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">their usage<\/a> by Joel Quenneville this season.<\/p>\n<p>Each players saw their lowest usage of the season under Quenneville, with it hitting a low in the course of the postseason once they were each healthy scratches at different times. Zellweger played just three of 12 games for the Geese, which was especially concerning provided that Anaheim went with the untraditional 11 forwards and seven defense route in some games. McTavish, who gave the impression of considered one of the longer shots on the roster to be a healthy scratch, sat for 2 games in the course of the postseason and played just 12:25 per game.<\/p>\n<p>Trading either of those two young players would feel like taking one step forward and two steps back, but when Quenneville goes to be the pinnacle coach who leads this team to contention, he will must have his favorite players. Clearly, neither of those players falls into that category after one season on the job, but that does not imply it may&#8217;t change. Pat Verbeek could take the danger that Quenneville and the 2 players sort it out and make it work, nevertheless it is a dangerous game to play when trying to take care of the trade value of each players.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Olen Zellweger, Mason McTavish trades would go away a hole in Geese&#8217; lineup<\/strong><\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3809453\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3809453\" style=\"width:1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3809453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Griffin Hooper-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Each McTavish and Zellweger would go away holes within the team&#8217;s lineup, despite the way it can have looked in the course of the 2026 postseason. The duo figured to be essential pieces of the rebuild and a component of the franchise for a very long time, but after Anaheim showed they will contend as early as next season, adding some veteran depth alongside players like Beckett Sennecke, Cutter Gauthier, and Jackson LaCombe may feel more essential than attempting to make this square peg slot in a round hole.<\/p>\n<p>Verbeek could be clever to strike while the iron is hot on these players before Quenneville further craters their value by playing them less and fewer in the course of the 2026-27 season. Zelleweger still shows massive value as a puck-moving defenseman, as players like which can be becoming an increasing number of essential within the hockey world. McTavish also can turn out to be a solid middle-six center that may play each ways and be a precious contributor on the powerplay. Any return the Geese can get from these players would help them each for the current and the long run.<\/p>\n<p>Some early destinations that stand out are two Atlantic Division teams, the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs. The Bruins are desperate for each some young talent down the center and a puck-moving defenseman, and a possible blockbuster deal could check each boxes. The Maple Leafs have some similar needs heading into next season as they try to bridge the gap between the Auston Matthews era and the potential Gavin McKenna era in the event that they take him first overall within the 2026 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;ll be tough pieces to stomach moving away from for Verbeek, but when he can discover a deal that makes his team higher immediately, he won&#8217;t be afraid to do it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Anaheim Geese have loads of things to construct on after their second-round elimination by the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights.  Anaheim defeated the back-to-back Stanley Cup Finalists, the Edmonton Oilers, in the primary round, which is not any small feat with their two superstars.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Anaheim Geese have loads of things to construct on after their second-round elimination by the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights. Anaheim defeated the back-to-back Stanley Cup Finalists, the Edmonton Oilers, in the primary round, which is not any small feat with their two superstars. The Geese are still a really young team as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":337638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338],"tags":[3124,704,4913,2461,8398,670,3838],"class_list":["post-337637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-2nd","tag-candidates","tag-ducks","tag-golden","tag-knights","tag-loss","tag-trade"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337637"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337640,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337637\/revisions\/337640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}