The Anaheim Ducks remain in active contract negotiations with forward Cutter Gauthier. If the reports of the talks are true, it appears the team will need to create salary-cap space to fit Gauthier under the cap. Gauthier turned down a $13MM AAV on his last offer, and with the Ducks having just $9.1MM under the cap at the moment (as per PuckPedia), the math just isn’t going to work for them after they matched the Philadelphia Flyers’ offer sheet to forward Leo Carlsson for $18MM annually. With all this money tied up in just two players, there will be a cap casualty in Anaheim; it’s just a matter of who.
The Ducks obviously need to lock up Gauthier to solidify their young core, but it’s become a very messy situation for the Ducks, one that may mirror the Toronto Maple Leafs’ nearly a decade ago, when four-star players accounted for much of their salary cap space. That led Toronto to constantly make difficult cap decisions and send effective players out the door on good contracts, while trying to plug the holes with players earning near the league minimum. The Ducks may find themselves in a similar position long-term, and they most certainly will this year.
The Ducks will need to create additional cap space this summer, and the best way to do that is to move a veteran or two on short-term or expiring contracts. A few obvious names that come to mind are forwards Chris Kreider, Alex Killorn, or Frank Vatrano. Those players have all been good pros for a long time, but they won’t be easy to move for a variety of reasons. Each of those three has some form of trade protection (a 15-team no-trade list for Kreider and Killorn, and a seven-team list for Vatrano).
Then there is their salaries relative to their effectiveness, which in Kreider’s case is not an issue. With Killorn and Vatrano, it’s certainly more of a concern. Killorn had 33 points last season in 82 games and remains relatively effective, while Vatrano had just nine points in 50 games and struggled throughout the season.
Vatrano is likely the most difficult of the three to trade. He carries a cap hit of $4.571MM over the final two years of a three-year contract. Vatrano is set to be paid $6MM in each of the last two years, but the deal includes significant deferrals that reduce the modern-day value of his deal and kick half of his salary down the road. That structure could be palatable to some teams, but given Vatrano’s lack of production this past year, it wouldn’t be a robust market. That said, Vatrano scored at least 20 goals in each of the three seasons prior to last year, including 37 goals in 2023-24, so teams could view him as a potential bounce-back candidate. At 32 years of age, Vatrano could have some good hockey left in him, but the Ducks would likely want to shed the final two years of his deal.
For Kreider and Killorn, each has one year left on their deals, with Kreider carrying a $6.5MM cap hit and Killorn a $6MM cap hit. In the new cap world, neither contract is overly problematic, and in Kreider’s case, you could argue he is playing at a discount this season. Kreider posted 22 goals and 28 assists in 75 games last year and remains an effective forward at 36 years old. Killorn had 15 goals and 18 assists and is now more of a third-liner. Kreider is likely a player that Anaheim will want to keep on board, while Killorn might be less so, although they obviously value what he brings and his veteran presence around the younger players.
Another option for the Ducks would be to shed one of their backup goaltenders, as they have both Ville Husso and Laurent Brossoit on the books. The two netminders are each in the final year of their contracts (and in Brossoit’s case, his first year), and it’s highly unlikely that Anaheim will carry three goaltenders into the NHL season. If the team opts to send Broissoit to the minors, they can shield his entire cap hit ($1.1MM) from the salary cap, while if they chose to do so with Husso, they would be unloading half of his $2.2MM cap hit for the time he is in the AHL. It’s probably not the ideal move for GM Pat Verbeek to make, but it’s an option for moving dollars out.
Anaheim is in a tough spot relative to the cap, and for every dollar added to Gauthier’s cap hit, it will be another dollar for Verbeek and company to contend with in their cap-clearing efforts. It’s tough to say where the final number will fall, but for the Ducks, it’s made an already problematic summer even more difficult at a time when the team was hoping to build on their surprising playoff run and take the next steps as an organization.