Ducks Add Miller to Their Crease

The Anaheim Ducks were not terribly busy on Saturday, but they did manage to add goalie Ryan Miller to a cheap, coming home contract and they put pen to paper on a contract extension with defenseman Cam Fowler.

Miller's desire to play in California stemmed a lot from his family situation, already living down there, so a cheap, 2-year, $4 million deal to help John Gibson out, made sense for him.

Miller was Vancouver's best player in the 2017 season, stealing games when he had help from his offense, but it was still a struggle to find consistent wins on a rebuilding team.  Now, he will have the opportunity to mentor another American goalie, as Gibson starts to round himself into an everyday starter.

Once July 1st rolled around, the Ducks could start to negotiate a contract extension with Fowler, who still has one more year on his current deal.  He'll see a significant pay raise when his 8-year extension kicks in in the 2019 season, going from his current $4 million cap hit up to $6.5 million.  As the 26th ranked defenseman in scoring last season, he's certainly earned the raise.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Corey Perry	8.625	Hampus Lindholm	5.250	John Gibson	2.300
Ryan Getzlaf	8.250	Sami Vatanen	4.875	Ryan Miller	2.000
Ryan Kesler	6.875	Cam Fowler	4.000
Rickard Rakell	3.800	Brandon Montour	0.925
Jakob Silfverberg	3.750	Korbinian Holzer	0.900
Patrick Eaves	3.150	Shea Theodore	0.863
Andrew Cogliano	3.000	Josh Manson	0.825
Antoine Vermette	1.750
Jared Boll	0.900
Nick Ritchie	0.894
Ondrej Kase	0.670
Logan Shaw	0.650
Chris Wagner	0.638
Corey Tropp	0.625

The Ducks haven't seen many changes yet in this off-season, adding a back-up goalie is all they have really done, so far.  I am currently showing the Ducks with $7.3 million in cap space left to use, if they so choose to tinker with this 23-man projected roster.

The Ducks looked pretty strong in the playoffs, until they ran into the Nashville Predators, so they are wise to stay the course with most of their roster players.  Re-signing Patrick Eaves earlier in the off-season was a shrewd move and adding Miller is a good move for the team, as they get a little deeper in net, adding that presence as well.  Anaheim appears to still be strong, so they will be a force to be reckoned with again in 2018.