The Ducks have re-signed forward Isac Lundeström to a one-year contract extension, the club announced on Sunday.
After earning $1.8 million against the cap in each of the past two seasons, Lundeström will take home $1.5 million for the coming campaign.
Lundeström, 24, was the Ducks’ first-round pick back in 2018 and has since accumulated 69 points in 258 career games. The Gällivare, Sweden, product injured his Achilles tendon while training in his homeland last summer, delaying his season debut until Jan. 3.
He produced five goals and 11 points in 48 games, providing positional versatility, pace and also penalty killing, having been promoted to the first shorthanded unit after the trade deadline.
The Swede’s extension kept him in the fold just a day before free agency was set to open, giving the Ducks one less consideration in a pivotal offseason.
The Ducks had the most cap space of any team in the league before the Lundeström signing, which slipped them just behind the Detroit Red Wings. Utah HC, which previously had the most flexibility, roughly halved its cap space with a series of moves including the acquisition of defenseman Mikhail Sergachev on Saturday and the contract extension of former Kings blue-liner Sean Durzi on Sunday.
This move to retain Lundeström was also executed on the final day for teams to qualify restricted free agents, which Lundeström would have otherwise become.
The Ducks also tendered qualifying offers to three other pending restricted free agents: defenseman Jackson LaCombe, center Nikita Nesterenko and winger Pavol Regenda.
That left several players who were not tendered. Forwards Max Jones, Brett Leason, Bo Groulx, Blake McLaughlin and Brayden Tracey, as well as defensemen Urho Vaakanainen and Gustav Lindström.
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A qualifying offer or the lack thereof is not a firm indicator of a player’s retention or dismissal, rather an offer extends a team’s control over a player’s negotiating rights. For a variety of circumstantial reasons, players who are not tendered qualifying offers end up negotiating new deals with their existing clubs just the same.
Lindström was a sound contributor in a limited role and is a right-handed-shooting rearguard, something the Ducks lack. Vaakainanen was a former first-round pick of the Boston Bruins and a significant piece in the Hampus Lindholm trade. He also played through his recovery from hip surgery last season, showing promise opposite Radko Gudas in a shutdown pairing. Leason, a savvy waiver claim from two seasons ago, seems likely to survive the bottom-six makeover, as could either Jones, a former first-round pick, or Groulx.