While many teams have been active in the first two days of free agency, the Anaheim Ducks aren't one of them.
The team’s only major signing yesterday was extending captain Ryan Getzlaf for another year, on a deal worth $4.5 million. While the team did overpay for Getzlaf, their abundance of cap space means it really didn’t matter what price the team had to pay to keep their captain around.
The Ducks have also made some minor additions, signing Danny O'Regan, Greg Pateryn, Brogan Raffety and Buddy Robinson as well.
It certainly isn’t surprising to see the Ducks laying low, given where they’re at right now. They won’t be competitive next season and the focus needs to turn to their younger group of players. Adding anyone via free agency would’ve likely meant taking lineup spots away from those players and slowing down their development. Plus, given that Kevin Shattenkirk was the major addition last year, which probably couldn’t have worked out worse for the Ducks, you can't fault the team for staying away this year.
I would say it wouldn’t have been a bad move to add some players on one or even two-year deals, even if it meant overpaying a bit, in order to retain salary and flip them for future assets at next year’s deadline. Again though, the Ducks do have a fairly crowded roster and given it could mean displacing a younger player to do that, the mid-round pick they’d get in any deadline deal may not have been worth it anyways. That said, I wouldn’t mind the Ducks taking back a bad contract in order to acquire some assets, rather than using that money on a legitimate roster player.
Regardless, I certainly don’t see the Ducks laying low in free agency as a bad thing. They’re not in a position to start adding pieces who can help right now and the focus should instead remain on building for the future.
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Are you surprised the Ducks haven't made any major additions in free agency?
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