{"id":465471,"date":"2026-09-16T10:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465471\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T10:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:12:16","slug":"anaheim-ducks-lock-up-cutter-gauthier-to-massive-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465471\/","title":{"rendered":"Anaheim Ducks Lock Up Cutter Gauthier To Massive Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Social Media Feature Preview\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/HSTXcKTXgAAFDD_.jpeg\"\/>There it is. Just a day before training camp opens, the Anaheim Ducks have finally come to terms with sniper Cutter Gauthier. It&#8217;s a six-year deal totaling $81 million \u2014 a $13.5 million AAV.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">CUT IT! \u2702\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>Our man Cutter signs a six-year deal keeping him in Anaheim through 2031-32. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/q2TmGNcx9o\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/q2TmGNcx9o<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AnaheimDucks\/status\/2100039576886943798?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">September 16, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>The contract buys out one year of UFA status.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old Gauthier broke out big-time with\u00a041 goals and 69 points in 76 games last season in his sophomore year in the NHL. He was a restricted free agent this offseason, as he had just completed\u00a0his three-year entry-level contract.<\/p>\n<p>The difficult talks with Gauthier came right down to the wire, as the Ducks&#8217; salary cap structure was thrown into disarray after the $18M AAV offer sheet signed by Leo Carlsson earlier this summer that they had no choice but to match.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To make room under the cap, they were forced to move off of some money first, leading to the waiving of Chris Kreider earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Ducks&#8217; cap space is now down to $2 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For context on how much the Carlsson deal boosted the Gauthier number, AFP Analytics had projected, going into the offseason, that Gauthier would be in line for an $8.8M AAV payday over seven years. He gets nearly $5M a year more.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Gauthier was the\u00a0fifth overall selection by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2022 NHL Draft, but he forced a trade in January of 2024, indicating he had no desire to sign with the Flyers. The Ducks sent defenseman Jamie Drysdale to Philly in return.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There it is. Just a day before training camp opens, the Anaheim Ducks have finally come to terms&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-465471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}