The Ducks have acquired center Ben Meyers from the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for a fifth-round selection in the upcoming draft, the team confirmed in a news release.
Additionally, the Ducks claimed defenseman William Lagesson, who had been placed on waivers by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The additions were a departure from the theme of subtraction to this point, with the Ducks having traded Sam Carrick, Adam Henrique and Ilya Lyubushkin ahead of Friday’s trade deadline and having dealt Jamie Drysdale to the Philadelphia Flyers in January.
Meyers, 25, was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as the best amateur player in the United States in 2022, when he co-captained the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and piled up 41 points in 34 games. He also competed for the U.S. at the 2022 Olympics, registering four points in four games.
He signed as an undrafted free agent with the Avalanche, playing five games and scoring one goal late in their Stanley Cup campaign of 2021-22. In 53 games across three seasons with Colorado, he had six goals and no assists.
At the American Hockey League level, Meyers accumulated 49 points in 62 games over the past two campaigns, including 24 in 30 games under Ducks coach Greg Cronin. He guided the Avalanche’s top minor-league affiliate, the Colorado Eagles, and helped acclimate Meyers in his first full season with the organization.
Lagesson, 28, is a Swede, but like Meyers has played some of his formative years in the United States Hockey League and later competed at the NCAA level, completing two campaigns at UMass-Amherst. He was a third-round draft selection of the Edmonton Oilers in 2014. Since then, he’s also been in the Montreal, Carolina and Toronto organizations.
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His 90 games of NHL experience came primarily with Edmonton as he barely saw the ice with Montreal and was a minor-leaguer exclusively in Carolina.
He found a role in Toronto, however, dressing in 30 games this season and picking up four of his six career points in the process. The 6-foot-2, left-shooting defender was a casualty of a salary-cap crunch and roster squeeze in Toronto after they acquired two defensemen, Joel Edmundson from Washington and Lyubushkin from the Ducks.