Hampus Lindholm hopeful Ducks will keep D core together despite salary cap woes

Anaheim Ducks defenseman Hampus Lindholm said it was important to keep the team’s defensive group together.

On a conference call with reporters, the 22-year-old Swede indicated this was why he decided to sign the contract he agreed to with the Ducks, a six-year deal that carries a $5.25 million salary cap hit. Lindholm was a restricted free agent coming off his entry-level deal.

According to Cap Friendly, the Ducks are up against the salary cap. Their current cap relief comes in the form of two players on long term-injured reserve – forward Nate Thompson who makes $1.6 million per-year, and defenseman Simon Despres who makes $3.7 million per-year.

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“I wanted to stay during the whole process, I wanted to stay the whole time and now it’s good we got that done and keep the core group,” Lindholm said. “I’ve played with Sami (Vatanen) and (Cam) Fowler and all those guys for a long time now. I feel we work well together. It’s exciting we have the same team basically as last year.”

In the past, the Ducks haven’t been a cap team, and have needed to be conscious of an internal budget as well. Currently Cap Friendly says Anaheim’s salary expenditure is $76,932,000.

Lindholm will make $3 million his first year, but that number spikes to $6 million next season, $6.75 million the following year, $5.25 million in the fourth year, 3.75 million the next season and then $6.75 million in the final year of the deal.

The way the contract is structured, the Ducks have some time to try to figure out their finances before Lindholm sees his real payday next year.

“This whole process, this was kind of the only time when we had time to sign me so we could still keep some players,” Lindholm said. “So it was kind of perfect that way that we got to keep the team we had last year too and all the guys, so really excited about coming back and hopefully do some good things this year.”

Once Despres and Thompson are healthy, it’s unclear how the Ducks will move forward with their salary situation. For a while it has seemed likely that the team would move a defenseman – a great position of depth in Anaheim – but that hasn’t happened yet.

Lindholm is arguably Anaheim’s top defenseman, and one of their best puck possession players. Last season he held a 57.8 CF% 5-on-5 and scored 10 goals and notched 18 assists in 80 games overall.

The Ducks have won three of their last four games after a sluggish start to 2016-17 and currently sit at 3-3-2. It’s unclear how long it will take Lindholm, who is currently in Sweden, to return to the team. TSN’s Bob McKenzie said the process of getting a visa could last seven-to-10 days, or maybe two weeks.

During his time off, Lindholm said he has been working out in Sweden with Rogle, where he played before he came to North America to join the Ducks organization. He said he hoped a contract could be worked out last summer, but was happy he could stay with the only organization he has ever known for the long term, even if the process took longer than expected.

“For me, as a player you want to be on a team you feel like you can compete and a team you feel like they have confidence in you and I felt they’ve really shown that now,” Lindholm said. “It’s going to be exciting for me to come back and develop my game and be better and better.”

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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