The Ducks inked defenseman Pavel Mintyukov to a five-year contract extension with a $7.2 million annual average value on Sunday.
This deal ends his restricted free agency and averts any offer sheets like the one tendered to Ducks center Leo Carlsson by the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday.
Mintyukov, 22, was the 10th overall pick in the 2022 draft. He has accumulated 69 points in 204 career games. His best season offensively came as a rookie in 2023-24, with 28 points in 63 appearances.
Last year, Mintyukov was a healthy scratch for multiple consecutive games, which did not sit well with his camp and even prompted some trade discussions. Yet he responded well and late in the season played on a second pairing with trade-deadline acquisition John Carlson into the playoffs.
The pact is very similar to the one signed by the Kings’ Brandt Clarke, a 2021 lottery pick who will earn $7.4 million per annum for the next five years. His production exceeded that of Mintyukov for the past two seasons, Clarke’s first two full NHL campaigns.
Most models and projections had the Russian rearguard coming in at a substantially lower cap hit than Clarke’s.
Yet Frank Seravalli reported that an incoming offer sheet for Mintyukov accelerated negotiations on Sunday, with the man they call “Minty” preferring to be a Duck all along.
With this signing, the Ducks would have less than $10 million in salary-cap space if they were to match Philly’s offer to Carlsson. That would be well under the market value of another restricted free agent, the Ducks’ leading scorer Cutter Gauthier.
Gauthier is not eligible to sign an offer sheet. However, perhaps the only bit of good news for Ducks GM Pat Verbeek. He has seen three defensemen leave in free agency and he traded another who then signed for less than half of what Mintyukov would make.
Now, Verbeek is weighing whether or not to let his franchise centerman walk in exchange for four first-round picks or bite the bullet on an extravagant contract. It would pay Carlsson an exorbitant sum and almost entirely in signing bonuses, with just south of $40 million due in the first 12 months.
Mintyukov’s deal has a modest $3 million in bonus money, but did appear inflated by market competition for his services, considering both its cost and timing.
Verbeek knew he had plenty of RFA negotiations between Carlsson, Gauthier, Mintyukov and the now Buffalo-bound Olen Zellweger. Yet he signed only defenseman Jackson LaCombe to an extension last season and failed to obviate offer-sheet threats, which became a possibility on July 1.