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Draft Weekend Was A Financial Success For The Anaheim Ducks

By Griffin Foster

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Nothing is worse than a boring and trade-less draft weekend. Fortunately for NHL fans, this past weekends draft was one for the ages. From Buffalo GM Tim Murray telling people they were on mushrooms, to Kings GM Dean Lombardi finding out that Mike Richards is in some kind of legal trouble, and lets not forget about new Bruins GM Don Sweeney completely cleaning house with a number of extremely bold moves.

The western conference and more specifically the pacific division, got a lot better during draft weekend. Dougie Hamilton was traded to the Calgary Flames and now gives them one of the deepest and most talented blue-lines in all of hockey. Milan Lucic was traded to the Kings and adds even more grit and hard nosed skill to an already impressive forward group. The Sharks traded away Anti Niemmi and acquired former Kings goalie Martin Jones who was sent to Boston as part of the Lucic deal, so Jones essentially went from LA to Boston and then to San Jose all in a matter of days.

While all of these teams got better, the impact of these deals gives them immediate improvement but at a financial cost.

Dougie Hamilton was just given a 6 year $34.5 million dollar deal with a salary cap hit of $5.75 million, a good deal for the Flames. While this does not hurt Calgary right now, it creates headaches for next summer. The Flames have 9 incredibly important players who become free agents next summer, much like the Ducks, those players include Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Juri Hudler, Kris Russel, Jonas Hiller, Markus Granlund and stud defencemen Mark Giordano. With Hamilton’s deal the Flames now have nearly $33.2 million committed for the ’16-’17 season. They are likely to have somewhere between $37 and $39 million in cap space to sign all of those before mentioned players, most of which deserve big deals. Mark Giordano has already stated that he wants a deal in the range of $9 million per year… oh boy.

Anaheim Ducks
Anaheim Ducks /

Anaheim Ducks

The Lucic deal was a nice one for the Kings and if this termination of Mike Richards contract (thats a whole different story) holds up, they could be looking decent financially for time being. Yes, Boston did retain some salary, but the Kings still have very little wiggle room to make any more moves this summer however and already have nearly $48 million committed to the ’16-’17 season. Lucic and Anze Kopitar both need new deals next summer and it will be difficult for the Kings to improve their roster for the ’16-’17 if they give Kopitar and Lucic their deserved new deals, especially with all of this Mike Richards and Slava Voynov uncertainty and drama that hangs in the balance.

The Flames and Kings look good to the average eye as they should. Both teams added great players that should fit in extremely well with their style of play. However, both teams committed to present success and chose to deal with the future financial uncertainty at a later time.

Enter Anaheim Ducks general manager Bob Murray. A man who is always looking to improve his roster but is never one to sacrifice the future. Murray made moves to improve his roster for this upcoming season, but he also made under the radar moves that put the Ducks in a much better financial situation to keep their young core intact.

The obvious improvement was the Carl Hagelin deal. Emerson Etem was not emerging into what the Ducks hoped he could be so Murray went out and found a new left winger, who will also help replace free agent Matt Beleskey who will not be back with the Ducks next season. It was a solid move as Hagelin is a speedy two-way type of player that could fit in well playing alongside any of the Ducks centers. Hagelin is a restricted free agent along with fellow winger Jakob Silfverberg and both were given qualifying offers from the Ducks and they will both likely sign sometime soon. This deal improves the Ducks roster now, much like the Hamilton and Lucic deals, except Hagelin and Silfverberg may not even combine for a cap hit of over $5 million. This deal was a financially sound one.

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The Kyle Palmieri move was a necessary one. Like the Flames, the Ducks have a number of key players hitting free agency next summer (Kesler, Lindholm, Despres, Vatanen, Andersen, Gibson, Rakell and Sekac). Palmieri was one of those players who needed a new deal come next summer, and Murray made the decision to trade him for financial purposes. Trading Palmieri took $1.4 million of the books for this season and allows for more available money to be given to the other free agents in the summer of 2016. Palmieri was due for a deal that would pay him $2-$3 million annually, so in reality, this deal saves the Ducks about $3 million for next summer in the efforts to re-sign the young guns.

James Wisniewski became Bruce Boudreau’s odd man out as the 7th defencemen during the playoffs. Defensive depth is fine but Wiz carried a cap hit of $5.5 million over the next two seasons, far to much money for a 7th defencemen. The deal sending Wiz to Carolina in exchange for goalie Anton Khudobin also puts the Ducks in a good financial situation. For this season, the deal saves the Ducks about $3.25 million as Khudobin’s cap hit is $2.25 million. Bob Murray made an incredible hockey deal here because Khudobin is a free agent after this season and the Ducks strictly acquired him for John Gibson insurance (I know Murray said he won’t trade Gibson, i’ll believe it the second after the 2016 trade deadline passes though). With Khudobin a free agent, it means the Ducks save $5.5 million for the ’16-’17 season as Wisniewski had 2 years remaining on his deal. So, this trade saves the Ducks $5.5 million to re sign all of those young up and coming free agents.

It’s hard to realize what an NHL GM has planned for his team at times and for Ducks fans, draft weekend might have been hard to deal with as you sat and watched two pacific division rivals improve their roster. But as I just pointed out, Bob Murray isn’t worried about making the big blockbuster deal that hurts the future, he made the Kesler deal last summer and that seems to be working out pretty well.

After the Palmieri and Wisniewski deals, Bob Murray pocketed nearly $8 million dollars that will go towards re-signing his key upcoming free agents. The Ducks started draft weekend with $20 million in cap space for this upcoming season and now have nearly $25 million. The Ducks started draft weekend with roughly $34-$37 million in cap space for next summer and now they have roughly $41-44 million to distribute to free agents. It may not seem like an overwhelming difference, but trust me, it is.

The draft is obviously about improving your prospect pool and for some teams it’s a chance to improve your roster via trade. For others like the Ducks and GM Bob Murray however, it presents a chance to make sure your roster is going to be the best it can be for the next 5 years. That’s exactly what Murray did over draft weekend, kept the future in mind while also worrying about the present. Murray’s efforts to create financial freedom set up a potential Duck dynasty.

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