The Ducks will have the pleasure of having Teemu Selanne in their line-up for another season after it was confirmed on Monday morning that he signed a new 1-year deal, said to be worth $3.5 million plus bonuses. The bonuses should determine what the overall cap hit is for the deal, but as of right now, we'll call it $3.5 million and we'll add Selanne to the roster for the coming year.
Selanne, who just turned 40 a month ago, came off a decent season with the Ducks in 2010, scoring 27 goals and 21 assists in 54 games, which is a 40-goal pace in a full season, so he has plenty of finish (pardon the pun) left in him. Selanne ranked 101st among forwards in scoring, but with missing 17 games to a hand injury and 8 more games to a broken jaw, we can definitely forgive him for not being a little higher in the rankings. I think it would be fair to give him the benefit of the doubt here and give him a little bit better numbers in his projection for 2011.| Forwards | Defense | Goalies |
| Corey Perry | Lubomir Visnovsky | Jonas Hiller |
| Ryan Getzlaf | Toni Lydman | Curtis McElhinney |
| Saku Koivu | Andy Sutton | |
| Teemu Selanne | Sheldon Brookbank | |
| Jason Blake | ||
| Todd Marchant | ||
| Dan Sexton | ||
| Joffrey Lupul | ||
| Kyle Chipchura | ||
| Ryan Carter | ||
| Aaron Voros | ||
| George Parros |
With this deal, the Ducks get a little bit older, moving closer to the oldest team, the Detroit Red Wings, who have an average age of 31.5 years. The Ducks adding 40-year old Selanne now have an average age of 30.5 years for the 19 players listed above, which is now ranked 2nd in the league behind the Red Wings.
The salary cap number for the 19 players above tentatively stands at $46.4 million, which isn't too bad, but the Ducks still have to sign Bobby Ryan to a new deal and he is likely to cash in well, likely in the $4 million range. After Ryan, there is the possibility of Paul Kariya and then filling out the three defense spots with quality talent and none of that will come cheap, I can assure you. The defense has been one of the strong points of the team on an annual basis and they have really downgraded since the trade of Chris Pronger and now the retirement of Scott Niedermayer. This should be a good finish to the Summer coming up for the Ducks.
I think this move was necessary for the Ducks to be competitive in 2011, but there will likely be some extra sacrifice to be done in terms of what the team will pay some of its future defensive talents. Selanne is still a good player and should be a good leader for those young players rising up to the top of the team's ranks, so I think it's money well spent. I'll be looking at Selanne at the hockey pool draft, but only in a certain range. I won't pick him too high.
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