The Anaheim Ducks have signed promising young defenseman Tristan Luneau to a six-year contract extension worth $43.2 million after just 14 NHL appearances. The Ducks announced the deal Thursday with the 22-year-old Luneau, whose promising career has been slowed by injury. Now healthy and ready for a full-time NHL role, he inked a long-term deal with the team that drafted him in the second round in 2022.
Luneau was the Quebec major junior league's top defenseman in the 2022-23 season and made the Ducks' roster out of training camp the following fall. He came down with a viral infection that winter while practicing with Canada's national junior team, however, forcing him to miss the rest of the year. Anaheim took a deliberate approach with Luneau's health for the past two seasons, keeping him with its AHL affiliate in San Diego for most of that time.
General manager Pat Verbeek moved aggressively to lock up Luneau after being burned repeatedly in restricted free agency over the offseason. Verbeek spent months failing to reach a deal with center Leo Carlsson, who then signed a $90 million offer sheet with Philadelphia that briefly made him the NHL's highest-paid player before Anaheim matched it. Luneau will join Jackson La Combe and Mintyukov as the new core of the Ducks' defense.
Source: ESPN NHL · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing