Ducks Trevor Zegras, with new contract, needs to start down a runway to stardom -

The tug-of-war between the Ducks and Trevor Zegras on a new contract is now – say it with me, loudly if you want – hi-stor-ee. Ducks fans can collectively exhale.

Did you think general manager Pat Verbeek, armed with his negotiating hammer, was going to drag out challenging discussions with agent Pat Brisson into the season? Did you start picturing Zegras, their young franchise face, getting insulted enough to want out? Did you see the season collapsing before Greg Cronin coached his first real game?

Well, clear your mind of any or all that. It took way too long for the most worried among the Ducks fans but on Monday, as the final week of training camp began, Verbeek got it done with a three-year agreement that will pay Zegras an average of $5.75 million. It saved me from posing the question of whether three years and $18 million would do the trick. Much more important, it makes sure that their wildly talented center will be in the lineup for the Oct. 14 season opener at Vegas.

The Ducks are starting to walk uphill after climbing out of the dark hole that was last season, when they were the worst team in the NHL. There is no greater hill to take on right away than the defending Stanley Cup champions in a lively T-Mobile Arena, two games after they’ve hung the eternal banner and gotten their rings. Yeah, they can’t even hope for the Golden Knights being a bit distracted by all the pomp and circumstance.

But the Ducks will have Zegras for that night, and many others. The narrative now shifts from the fuss over getting their leading scorer locked up to whether the player they call “Z” is going to be a dude with a gift for fancy plays who should rack up points — or become The Dude. (You remember those T-shirts after the alley-oop with Sonny Milano. Stay with me here.)

This three-year extension feels like the runway to stardom — dare we say superstardom, or is that beyond his realm? — and we’re going to see if the 22-year-old Zegras can execute that takeoff. You. Me. Players and coaches. Verbeek. Brisson. And probably Zegras himself.

First things first, there was a developing undercurrent that Verbeek might not see Zegras as an essential part of his rebuild, which includes Mason McTavish, Leo Carlsson and a bevy of upside-rich defenseman prospects. There was a thought that old-school Verbeek perhaps wasn’t nearly as enamored with Zegras’s high-risk, occasional highlight-reel game as the center’s biggest fans are.

In the initial team-issued statement on the extension, Verbeek said he views Zegras as a “critical and valued player” to the organization and expressed how he wanted to see his “next chapter.” Later, when I directly asked if he sees Zegras as a foundation piece in the rebuild, the GM said, “That’s always been our take with Trevor. There’s always certain things that every player has to go through as far as a maturity part in their game, and Trevor’s no different than anyone else that’s come into this league.”

But as he arrives back in Southern California and undergoes his physical and testing Tuesday, Zegras is going to be prodded and pushed to reach higher levels. Most notably, it will center on his ability to defend and win faceoffs if he wants to stay in the middle for the long haul.

“I see great things for Trevor,” Verbeek said. “I think when we look at him, I’m looking for him to develop more of a two-way game. And there’s going to be a lot of things that he’s going to be able to learn from coach Greg Cronin in how we’re going to play as a group.

“I had some really good discussions before we signed this contract with Trevor on some of the things that we were going to be asking him to do, and Trevor was all in. It’s a real positive thing. It’s a really mature thing from Trevor’s standpoint in our discussions.

“The sky’s the limit for Trevor. It’s just a matter of him coming in here with a great attitude and putting the work in on both sides of the ice.”

That’s the crux of it. Both sides of the rink. It is why Verbeek was hesitant to go with the kind of term he gave fellow top forward Troy Terry. He wasn’t going to pay him for seven years or the $7 million annually that Terry is now getting. He’s also showing that he isn’t going to dish out extensions to his RFAs at first blush, despite his bountiful cap space, and that he doesn’t mind digging his heels in — even if he had to get a veteran like Alex Killorn out of Tampa Bay with an overpay.

But Verbeek will also have to pay up later if Zegras evolves into that front-line star who enhances his value on the ice. The salary cap is going up after years of remaining flat or minimally rising. When his contract expires in 2026, the ceiling could be beyond $92 million. Verbeek knows that. Zegras and Brisson surely know that.

Brisson said the contract talks began about two months ago and that both sides agreed to proceed with a three-year deal in mind. “Eight years was never part of the discussions,” he told The Athletic, referring to the maximum term a player can re-sign with his team.

Going this route does give Zegras the opportunity to shoot for something much greater — perhaps an average in eight digits — if he rises to an All-Star level or becomes a top player in the manner that his former U.S. NTDP bandmate Jack Hughes has become for New Jersey.

“Each team is different,” Brisson said. “Some teams have no cap space, so sometimes they’re pushed or squeezed to do a short-term deal. We’ve done that. We’ve seen it before. In this case, the team has plenty of cap space but they preferred exploring short term, which we were OK with that. It all depends on your business model, I guess.

“Some teams would lock up young assets to long-term deals. Right now, I guess Anaheim is — it’s not the way they looked at it. We’re OK with it. At the end of the day, Trevor has got amazing upside and we’re confident that he’ll capitalize on that. Hopefully if he does, then the team will be happy as well because he’ll be the player that they’re looking for.”

Working this contract out now gives Zegras the chance to get in a full practice and a morning skate session this week. And if he doesn’t play in Saturday’s exhibition finale against Arizona in Tucson, he’ll still have a full week of workouts before going to Vegas. But the time is starting to shrink for Jamie Drysdale, a restricted free agent defenseman who is still unsigned and coming off a season in which he played in only eight games after needing a torn labrum in his shoulder surgically repaired.

Drysdale is healthy and participated in the unofficial player-run skates before camp opened. The only update Verbeek would offer on signing his defenseman is that there is no update. “Well, we’re going through the process,” he said. “It’s taking a little longer but we’re going through the same process we went through with Trevor.”

For now, Verbeek relieved himself of one headache. He called this deal a “steppingstone” to the next one, perhaps an allusion to being willing to pay market value to someone he believes has vast upside. “We’re looking at this as a way for Trevor to be able to attain and become the player over the next three years that he wants to become and then for us to be able to move on and (him) become a cornerstone of this franchise,” he said.

On the other side, Brisson calls his client a player with elite skill.

“Players like that, they’re hard to find because you can’t teach skill and hockey sense,” he said. “He’s still young and he’s growing. He’s going to grow into his game and he should become, in my opinion, a top center on a very good team.

“I think the sky’s the limit for Trevor Zegras. The skill set is pretty amazing.”

How high is that sky? We will now find out. With Zegras, the general manager and the agent agreed on semantics as well as dollars. Both also arrived at good sense.

(Photo of Trevor Zegras: Stephen R. Sylvanie / USA Today)

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