Granlund lands three-year, $21M deal with Ducks

Mikael Granlund, one of the most prominent free agent centers, signed a three-year contract with the Anaheim Ducks worth $7 million annually on Tuesday.

Granlund was already going to be a player to watch entering free agency with his most recent team, the Dallas Stars, facing a salary cap crisis that made it challenging to offer anything remotely close to what the 33-year-old could receive on the open market.

It initially appeared that this particular free agency window could be a rather lucrative one for centers. And it was, but not in the way most would have expected with centers such as Sam Bennett, Matt Duchene, Brock Nelson and John Tavares remaining their current teams and Jonathan Toews signing with his hometown Winnipeg Jets.

That meant any team seeking a top-six or a top-nine center would likely be forced to pay top dollar to acquire anyone who was available, allowing Granlund, who can also play on the wing, to ink the richest deal of his life with a franchise that's trying to make the playoffs in 2025-26.

Granlund is a three-time 20-goal scorer who finished with 22 goals and 66 points in a season that started with the San Jose Sharks before he was traded to the Stars. He was part of a setup of five Finnish players in Dallas with Miro Heiskanen, Roope Hintz, Esa Lindell and Mikko Rantanen that was nicknamed "The Finnish Mafia."

The Finnish Mafia played an instrumental role in the Stars advancing to the Western Conference final for a third consecutive season before they were eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers for a second year in a row.

Granlund being a two-way, top-nine center who can be trusted in every situation is why the Stars wanted to keep him, but it's also why they couldn't afford to.

Enter Anaheim.

Missing the postseason for seven consecutive seasons provided the Ducks with the infrastructure to build through the draft. They used that capital to build their current roster around Troy Terry, Leo Carlsson, Lukas Dostal, Pavel Mintyukov, Jackson LaCombe and Mason McTavish only to then add more young talent via trade, which is how they got Cutter Gauthier and Drew Helleson.

Finishing with 80 points for the first time since 2018-19 season created the expectation that the Ducks could be ready to soar to new heights next season.

That led to Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek firing coach Greg Cronin after two seasons and hiring Joel Quenneville, who guided the Chicago Blackhawks to three Stanley Cup titles.

Verbeek also acquired New York Rangers winger Chris Kreider via trade last month to give his club a veteran top-nine forward and dealt forward Trevor Zegras, who was once the face of the Ducks' youth movement, along with goaltender John Gibson to give the club more than $35.9 million in cap space.

It created the idea that the Ducks could make a signing in free agency while keeping cap space set aside for pending restricted free agents such as Dostal, McTavish and Helleson.

They used it to sign Granlund with the idea he could be used down the middle or on the edge to strengthen a top six that could seriously challenge for one of the two Western Conference wild-card spots after finishing 16 points behind the St. Louis Blues for the final playoff berth in 2024-25.