ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — The Anaheim Ducks have signed promising young defenseman Tristan Luneau to a six-year contract extension worth $43.2 million after just 14 NHL appearances.
The Ducks announced the deal Thursday with the 22-year-old Luneau, whose promising career has been slowed by injury.
Now healthy and ready for a full-time NHL role, he inked a long-term deal with the team that drafted him in the second round in 2022.
Luneau was the Quebec major junior league's top defenseman in the 2022-23 season, and he made the Ducks' roster out of training camp the next fall. But Luneau came down with a viral infection that winter while practicing with Canada's national junior team, forcing him to miss the rest of the year.
Anaheim took a deliberate approach with Luneau's health for the past two seasons, keeping him with its AHL affiliate in San Diego for most of that time. But the Ducks never wavered in their belief that Luneau will be an above-average defenseman, and they proved it with a long-term contract for a player who suited up in just one game for the NHL club last season.
Luneau will be expected to play a significant role this season for the Ducks, who lost four veteran defensemen — Jacob Trouba, captain Radko Gudas, John Carlson and Olen Zellweger — from last season's already mediocre blue line group over the summer.
Anaheim general manager Pat Verbeek moved aggressively to lock up Luneau after being burned repeatedly in restricted free agency over the offseason.
Verbeek spent months failing to reach a deal with center Leo Carlsson, who then signed a $90 million offer sheet with Philadelphia that briefly made him the NHL's highest-paid player before Anaheim matched it. Carlsson is among the best young centers in hockey, but his deal is worth much more than he was expected to get as a restricted free agent — as is the five-year, $36 million deal given to Pavel Mintyukov by Verbeek after other teams began to sniff around the Russian defenseman in the wake of Carlsson's massive offer sheet.
Verbeek then signed high-scoring forward Cutter Gauthier to a six-year, $81 million extension last month, but the resulting salary cap constraints from Verbeek's summer of misadventure effectively forced the Ducks to waive 22-goal scorer Chris Kreider, damaging their depth.
Luneau will join Jackson LaCombe and Mintyukov as the new core of the Ducks’ defense. Rising star LaCombe agreed to an eight-year, $72 million extension a year ago.
Anaheim ended a seven-year playoff drought last spring, advancing to the second round under coach Joel Quenneville. The Ducks open the regular season Friday at Vegas before their home opener Sunday against Florida.
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Greg Beacham, The Associated Press
