Logan Stanley is still sitting out there in free agency, and the longer this drags on, the more the market seems to be telling him to rethink the price tag. At one point, the defenseman may have been aiming for as much as $5 million, but now the talk is that he might need a PTO just to get himself to camp.
One team that came up as a possible landing spot is the Anaheim Ducks, provided they can make the money work. The fit, at least on paper, is pretty easy to see: Anaheim still needs help on defense, and Stanley’s size and style would give them another big body on the blue line.
Mike Rupp pointed to Anaheim on Daily Faceoff and said Stanley stands out to him as the best match. He noted the Ducks have roughly $9 million in cap space, but also have Cutter Gauthier to sign, which complicates things.
Rupp: “Logan Stanley’s the big one for me because yeah, it didn’t work out in Buffalo. And I don’t know where his number is, asking price is as a UFA.
But I, I look to a team like Anaheim who has a lot of decisions to make, as far as, I mean, they got to get Cutter Gauthier signed. And when I say a lot of decisions to make, is because I think they need help on their roster still. They’re losing Jacob Trouba, losing Radko Gudas.
I know a lot of people out there can’t believe that a team like San Jose would take on both of those contracts (Trouba and Darnell Nurse). But at the end of the day, they’re still veteran guys who are hard to play against, and probably good leaders inside that room.
And it feels like looking at that D-core, they need a veteran guy, maybe a bigger guy that can be hard to play against. So Logan Stanley makes sense for me, but they have, like we said, other decisions to, to be made.”
Jason Gregor added that Anaheim is currently sitting at about $9.7 million in cap space. He said Troy Terry is expected to miss roughly the first two months of the season, which could give the Ducks a path to make the numbers work.
Gregor laid out one possible route: sign Gauthier for $15 million, place Terry on LTIR to begin the year, and use that flexibility to stay under the cap.
“The problem is when Terry’s healthy, then they’d have to free up, you know, $6 million in a bit to get him on, which, which isn’t ideal, right? Do they wait it out and see if another injury occurs? That’s definitely something, you know, they could look at.”
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Ducks Prospect Anthony Allain-Samake Has A Long Road Worth Watching
Anthony Allain-Samake is the kind of Ducks prospect whose value will be measured more by patience than immediate headlines. Anaheim took the defenseman in the sixth round of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft after his freshman season at the University of Connecticut, where he got into 38 games and chipped in one goal and 10 points. For a team always looking to stock the pipeline on the blue line, he represents the sort of long-view bet that can look smart a few years down the line if the development goes as planned.
Allain-Samakes next step is expected to be more of the same at UConn, where he can keep adding strength, pace and polish before any pro decision becomes relevant. The Ducks have plenty of time to let that process unfold, and that makes his track especially worth monitoring because the timeline is not close to urgent. If he keeps trending in the right direction, Anaheim may eventually have to decide how his college growth translates into an entry-level deal. [Read more 🡒]