One Year Later: The First Brian Dumoulin Trade

By Thomas Harrington

One year ago today, the Anaheim Ducks acquired defensemen Brian Dumoulin from the Seattle Kraken for a 2026 fourth round draft pick.

After a decade in Pittsburgh, Dumoulin left as a free agent and signed a two-year deal with Seattle in 2023. He played in one full season with the Kraken, scoring six goals and 16 points in 80 games. The six goals scored were a career high for Dumoulin. He was used on Seattle’s bottom pair and was an important part of their penalty kill unit.

After a difficult 2023-2024 season, the Ducks were looking to upgrade their lineup at multiple positions. It’s well known that when free agency opened a year ago, the Ducks were after some of the biggest names available like Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, and former Duck Brandon Montour. However, when Anaheim failed to land any of them, Pat Verbeek pivoted to the trade market to make two smaller deals. In the first one, he was looking to upgrade Anaheim’s defensive core. Anaheim had allowed 293 goals the previous season, third most in the entire NHL. 

Dumoulin had fit in well with Seattle, but after they signed Montour and Chandler Stephenson early in free agency, they needed to move out some salary. Dumoulin’s contract was worth $3.15 million. By trading that salary, the Kraken were able to get back some cap space. Dumoulin was brought in to help stabilize Anaheim’s blueline, and, if the Ducks found themselves out of the playoffs, as a potential trade chip ahead of the trade deadline. His addition also helped Anaheim get above the salary cap floor. In the end, the Ducks fell short of the playoffs and traded Dumoulin to the New Jersey Devils at the trade deadline.

In 61 games with the Ducks, Dumoulin scored two goals and 16 points. He was often paired with one of Anaheim’s many young defensemen. He played most often next to Drew Helleson, but he also played significant minutes with Pavel Mintyukov and a decent amount with Olen Zellweger. Dumoulin helped these young defensemen improve their overall defensive game. Similar to Ilya Lyubushkin playing a ton with Mintyukov the year before, this kind of impact can’t really be measured, but I believe he has had a positive impact on their development.

Despite the changes that Seattle made last summer, they finished with a worse record, dropping from 81 points in the 2023-2024 season to 76 points this past season. However, Dumoulin was essentially replaced with Montour, and that’s a trade any team would take. So while Seattle was worse this past season, I don’t believe Dumoulin’s absence played a major role in that. I do think they missed his physical presence, but I don’t think him being gone is the reason why they regressed as a team.

A year later, the Ducks can definitely look back on this deal as a win. They got over 60 games of solid defense out of Dumoulin, and when they fell out of playoff contention, flipped him for a prospect and 2025 second round draft pick. Given that Anaheim only gave up a fourth round pick for him, this was some nice asset management done by Verbeek. The Kraken won’t even step up to the podium to use this pick until next summer, so it will be a very long time before we know whether or not they managed to get an NHL player out of the deal. Ultimately, this trade was Seattle looking to move out salary, and they were able to do that, so while this isn’t a big win for them, the trade did what it was supposed to.

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July 2nd, 2025