Ducks Sign Andy Sutton

The Anaheim Ducks announced that they signed unrestricted free agent defenseman Andy Sutton to a new 2-year deal, worth $4.25 million in total, a $2.125 million cap hit per season. This is the kind of deal I was kind of waiting for, as the Ducks are in desperate need to fill some defenseman roster spots with some good quality help. A solid defense is really what's needed in the strong defense-first Western Conference.

In 2010, Sutton split time between both the Islanders and the Senators, taking his defensive game to a new stop at the deadline as a rental player.  Sutton is not an offensive force on the ice, scoring only 5 goals and 8 assists in 72 games between the two sides, ranking only 133rd among defensemen, which doesn't make him a good fantasy pick going into the 2011 season.  Sutton will likely get a shutdown pairing job with the Ducks and should help get some more wins for the Ducks goaltending.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Corey Perry	Lubomir Visnovsky	Jonas Hiller
Ryan Getzlaf	Toni Lydman	Curtis McElhinney
Saku Koivu	Andy Sutton
Jason Blake	Sheldon Brookbank
Todd Marchant
Dan Sexton
Joffrey Lupul
Kyle Chipchura
Ryan Carter
Aaron Voros
George Parros

I meant to post the team table when James Wisniewski signed, but as I was finishing up, he was dealt to Long Island, putting the ki-bosh on that idea right away. Here now is my updated look at the Ducks, on who I expect to be suited up to start the year.

The Ducks, cap-wise, are in pretty decent shape, having 17 players on their table above for the annual cap hit of $43.1 million, giving them ample room to fill some holes at a good cost, including signing restricted free agent, Bobby Ryan.  The Ducks need two more forwards and three defensemen to really stay deep enough to start the season, but if they have full intentions on being a cap team, they have more than enough scratch to fill the needs well, just a question of being filled well enough.

I'm still not a big fan of where the Ducks defense is heading, especially without some better puck movement on the blueline. I know Cam Fowler is supposed to be coming up and I can honestly see him making the jump here this season, but I don't think that will be enough and the Ducks are going to get hemmed in their own zone a fair bit. The Ducks may indeed be better off getting a guy like Teemu Selanne or Paul Kariya, who both could wind up the offense from the back end by carrying the puck.