The Anaheim Ducks have added some depth to their bottom six, announcing that they have inked Antoine Vermette to a two year contract. TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie reports the deal carries a cap hit of $1.75MM.
Vermette was bought out of the final year of his contract by Arizona earlier this month despite collecting 17 goals and 21 assists to go along with a 55.9% success rate at the faceoff dot in 76 games with the Coyotes last season. As a result of doing so, Vermette will also collect $1.25MM from his former team for each of the next two years. That means instead of being guaranteed $3.75MM for 2015-16 and being unrestricted afterwards (his original contract), he is now guaranteed $6MM over the next two seasons so being bought out certainly worked out in his favor.
This will mark Vermette’s fifth team in his career as he has also suited up with Ottawa, Columbus, and Chicago. Overall, he has played in 910 career NHL contests, scoring 211 goals while adding 260 assists. He also has been a strong player on faceoffs throughout his career as he has won over 56% of the greater than 12,000 draws he has taken.
Vermette should likely slot in as the third or fourth center for the Ducks and also has played the left wing at times throughout his career, giving Anaheim some much needed flexibility inside their bottom six. He joins Mason Raymond and Jared Boll as new acquisitions up front for Anaheim this summer.
[Related: Updated Ducks’ Depth Chart]
The Ducks now have a little over $6.65MM in cap space to work with this offseason according to Cap Friendly. They have two of the 20 remaining restricted free agents in defenseman Hampus Lindholm and center Rickard Rakell.
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