The Anaheim Ducks' front office has suddenly become the busiest in hockey. They're in the midst of deciding how to proceed with the $18M AAV offer sheet that Leo Carlsson signed with the Philadelphia Flyers. At the same time, they just salvaged another of their restricted free agents by heading off an offer sheet for Pavel Mintyukov with a big new extension.
But if they are planning on keeping Carlsson—and GM Pat Verbeek has said all along coming into the summer that they would match any offer sheet that came his way—then they will have only $9,973,395 of cap space remaining, per @PuckPedia. Given Carlsson's new salary, that amount will not be nearly enough to get their other crucial RFA signed, Cutter Gauthier. The 41-goal sniper will be looking for much more than that.
All of this means that the Ducks need to purge some salary to make it all work. It sounds like Frank Vatrano might be one of those to pay the price. His name has been added to the latest summer trade board, courtesy of David Pagnotta and The Fourth Period. Given Anaheim's cap gymnastics they are practicing as a result of Leo Carlson's offer sheet with Philadelphia, the early word is the Ducks are seeing how they can create more cap space for other moves/signings and (Frank) Vatrano may be the odd man out.
The 32-year-old Vatrano has two more years to run on his $4.57 million cap hit. Add that to the $9.973M in cap space, and maybe, just maybe, the Ducks could come close to being able to afford Gauthier.
Vatrano had just 5 goals, could be on his way out of Anaheim
Vatrano's offense cratered this season, to just five goals in 50 games, after three consecutive 20+ goal seasons in Anaheim.
Other names that have been bandied about on social media as potential cap casualties for the Ducks include Chris Kreider ($6.5M, one year left) or Alex Killorn ($6.25M, one year).
This should be a very intriguing next few days in Orange County.
