Confirmed with Link: Ducks sign Kodie Curran (2 years, $1M AAV)

[Leonardo87]

The team played 60 games after Gudbranson was acquired, I'd be surprised if we had all four of him, Lindholm, Fowler and Manson in the lineup at the same time for even half of those.

Still, the lack of forward scoring really was an issue as well. Teams tend to outscore their D woes or when facing injuries to their D, Ducks couldn’t do that. Bad PP was one of the major reasons for that obviously, Curran is low risk and if he can help jolt the PP then will be good. I don’t think he terminated his other contract which I heard cost him money to play in the AHL.

It just sucks we may have a while to see some Ducks hockey again.

 

[MilesNewton]

According to Swedish media Curran had to buy himself out from his KHL deal, 20 million rubles (close to $285k) out of his own pocket.
Good sign of him being really eager to prove himself and explains the one way deal.

Deal seems a bit steep for all the defencemen that are currently with the Ducks and Gulls. 2 year deal is interesting.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

Soo...
Lindholm
Fowler
Djoos
Curran
Guhle
Larsson
Mahura
Benoit
Lacombe
Thrun

Vs

Manson
Gudbranson
Andersson

Definetly need to find some RHD depth in the draft

Hakanpaa is also a RHD.

On that note, Andersson was acquired at the TDL. Gudz was traded for at the beginning of the season. Hakanpaa was signed during the off-season. We added three RHD within the span of one off-season to the next off-season cycle. Not bad. Now, GM Murray has also stated that some left hand shooting defensemen can play the right side, as he implies Scotty Nieds as his example.

We do need some RHD in the draft and hopefully they'll also be BPA. In the first round, here are a few potential RHD: 5'11 Drysdale, 6'2 Schneider, 6'2 Grans, and 6'2 Barron. We own the 5th (potentially), the 31st (potentially), and 36th. We do have a few bites of the apple if we choose to select a RHD, provided they're BPA at our selection. I won't be upset if we ended up with a LHD with one of our three picks. Gotta trust our scouts, especially with defense.

 

[gilfaizon]

Hunter Drew is another RHD in the system.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

@Dirk316 Looks like a decent scrapper

 

[MMC]

 

[duxfan1101]

BM's quote on signing Curran:

We felt another one of our issues was that our defense was too young. And with young forwards, it really hurt us. We've kind of shored up our depth on defense. It's going to take a lot of defensemen to get through next year. Curran is a late bloomer. We've known about him for years and his improvement over the last couple of years in the Swedish Hockey League. You saw the numbers and awards he won. We're quite excited about that. I expect some really good competition on defense [next] year. We should be deep enough. I think the schedule is going to be fairly tough next year.
[Head European Scout] Jan-Åke Danielson mentioned him last year. He thought he was coming on with Rogle at the end of last year. This year, the notes were regular once a month. [Laughs]. 'Bob, we've got to sign this guy. Bob, we've got to sign this guy.' When I was over there one time, I went and saw him with Jan-Åke. I said 'Wow.' He's a late bloomer who figured it out. I talked to him yesterday morning. He had some issues with a Russian team and a Swedish team with his rights. It took him a while to get this done. I give him credit because he bought himself out of a little bit of trouble with the Russian team. He wanted to be here. He's learned how to train. Some of us take longer than others. He's figured it out. He gives us more options on the backend. For a couple years, we haven't been as good as we usually are, but we're going to fix that.
Jan-Åke saw it the best with him playing in the other European leagues. Coming to the SHL and watching him the year before, the step-by-step improvement in his game. One game I was at last year he was dominant. I thought 'Oh wow, what the hell has he been doing his whole life?' It'll be interesting back here. He's a Calgary boy. He won't have a problem with the ice size. It took Jani Hakanpaa a little while to figure out our ice. Kodie shouldn't have that problem. I'm enthused about the depth on our defense. It's going to be good competition. The young guys aren't out of it. They're going to have to earn their stripes just like everybody else around here.

 

[Goose of Reason]

Does anyone remember what game bob went to scout that we all thought he was going to watch Grans for? Maybe that was more to focus on Curran than Grans.

Edit: Nevermind I found the tweet, it was Malmo vs Brynas, not Rogle. Curran wasnt in that game.

 

[Gliff]

Glad to hear about him being used to NA ice.
Our defensive depth is pretty crazy. It would just be nice if one of the young guys had some higher upside to tap into.

 

[Paul4587]

Glad to hear about him being used to NA ice.
Our defensive depth is pretty crazy. It would just be nice if one of the young guys had some higher upside to tap into.

Yeah now that we have a bit more depth it would be nice if someones development could go north quickly and become a top pairing guy. Lindholm and Fowler are the only guys I’m comfortable saying are quality top 4 options currently.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

I think either Manson or Gudz are near perfect complements to Lindholm, who's our #1 D. Fowler is not a top-pairing defensemen, which we've come to witness. Djoos is a player I'm really intrigued about as I can see him be a top-4 guy.

With Djoos, Curran, and Hakanpaa, GM Murray has infused a lot of older blueliners into our system to create a threshold for our youths to exceed in order to get an NHL spot.

As for our own prospects, I'm holding out for Larsson to be a 2nd pairing guy. We don't know what we have in RHD Axel. Our college blue liners in LaCombe and Thrun have earn praises. We might be waiting for those two guys, but that's fine because we have talent that can hold for that long. Also, if we land Drysdale with our first pick in the first round, then we might have a #1/#2 defenseman.

Did I mention how relieved I am to have Djoos on our team?! We just extended the time for our defensive prospects to develop, which they really need, especially Guhle.

 

[Magnus the Duck]

Lindholm and Fowler are the only guys I’m comfortable saying are quality top 4 options currently.

Lindholm - Curran, it would be our Rögle D pair.

 

[Duck Off]

I think either Manson or Gudz are near perfect complements to Lindholm, who's our #1 D. Fowler is not a top-pairing defensemen, which we've come to witness. Djoos is a player I'm really intrigued about as I can see him be a top-4 guy.

With Djoos, Curran, and Hakanpaa, GM Murray has infused a lot of older blueliners into our system to create a threshold for our youths to exceed in order to get an NHL spot.

As for our own prospects, I'm holding out for Larsson to be a 2nd pairing guy. We don't know what we have in RHD Axel. Our college blue liners in LaCombe and Thrun have earn praises. We might be waiting for those two guys, but that's fine because we have talent that can hold for that long. Also, if we land Drysdale with our first pick in the first round, then we might have a #1/#2 defenseman.

Did I mention how relieved I am to have Djoos on our team?! We just extended the time for our defensive prospects to develop, which they really need, especially Guhle.

the only thing Manson is “near perfect” at is being one of the most inconsistent players in the league. Dude goes from looking like Pronger to Bryan Allen in same game.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

the only thing Manson is “near perfect” at is being one of the most inconsistent players in the league. Dude goes from looking like Pronger to Bryan Allen in same game.

I stated "near perfect complements to Lindholm". Parsing what I wrote and sharing the altered message really is disingenuous narrative making. If you wanna hate on Manson, then go ahead. But don't use my words, alter my message, and then use it to propagate your hate on Manson. smh

 

[Duck Off]

I stated "near perfect complements to Lindholm". Parsing what I wrote and sharing the altered message really is disingenuous narrative making. If you wanna hate on Manson, then go ahead. But don't use my words, alter my message, and then use it to propagate your hate on Manson. smh

woah dude. chill out. I think you're taking that too personally. Sorry if it came off as a personal attack.

I know your thing is to typically give the players (and GM) the benefit of the doubt, but i quoted your post because i think saying "near perfect" or even "near perfect compliment to Lindholm" is overboard. He can be a great compliment, but he can also be an extreme liability who you want nowhere near your top pair. That's not "near perfect" to me.

As for the rest of your post; i agree about Djoos. i love his addition to our team. I don't agree about Larsson at all. Holding out hope he'll be a 2nd pair guy still is reaching IMO. That said, i hope he achieves that as well.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

woah dude. chill out. I think you're taking that too personally. Sorry if it came off as a personal attack.

I know your thing is to typically give the players (and GM) the benefit of the doubt, but i quoted your post because i think saying "near perfect" or even "near perfect compliment to Lindholm" is overboard. He can be a great compliment, but he can also be an extreme liability who you want nowhere near your top pair. That's not "near perfect" to me.

As for the rest of your post; i agree about Djoos. i love his addition to our team. I don't agree about Larsson at all. Holding out hope he'll be a 2nd pair guy still is reaching IMO. That said, i hope he achieves that as well.

Bruh, "near perfect player" isn't anywhere similar to a "near perfect compliment player". Manson and Gudz know their roles when paired with Lindholm, which makes that two-some a very effective pairing because their roles we well defined. Consider paring Fowler with Lindholm and you end up with a clusterDuck. I don't want to see a Fowler-Lindholm pairing because they don't complement each other as both believe they're the alphas on that pairing unit, which causes a lot of confusion in the roles of the pairing.

Do you even know what complement means? smh

Before Manson was injured, a Lindholm-Manson pairing helped the Ducks have a very low PPGA. When Manson returned, he really was a shell of himself and couldn't skate, but we were desperate for blue line talent when Lindholm went down to injury, Guhle bombed out after starting out solid, and either Guds or Fowler got injured too. We were that desperate.

 

[gilfaizon]

We could really use a bounceback season from Manson. I actually really liked Cam and Gudbranson together last year, so this would give us a pretty solid top 4. I would be very interested in a Djoos-Curran pairing, but I feel it may be one or the other playing in a given night.

 

[Duck Off]

Bruh, "near perfect player" isn't anywhere similar to a "near perfect compliment player". Manson and Gudz know their roles when paired with Lindholm, which makes that two-some a very effective pairing because their roles we well defined. Consider paring Fowler with Lindholm and you end up with a clusterDuck. I don't want to see a Fowler-Lindholm pairing because they don't complement each other as both believe they're the alphas on that pairing unit, which causes a lot of confusion in the roles of the pairing.

​

would you mind showing me where I said "near perfect player"? I didn't say that.

Like I said, I don't think "near perfect compliment player" to Lindholm was accurate either. Not the Manson we saw last year. someone that inconsistent is not a "near perfect compliment player" IMO.
​

Do you even know what complement means? smh

Before Manson was injured, a Lindholm-Manson pairing helped the Ducks have a very low PPGA. When Manson returned, he really was a shell of himself and couldn't skate, but we were desperate for blue line talent when Lindholm went down to injury, Guhle bombed out after starting out solid, and either Guds or Fowler got injured too. We were that desperate.

Manson is honestly extremely overrated. He's one of my favorite players in the league, but he's incredibly overrated. He can't be the best player on a pairing. Each time they've asked him to carry a pairing, its failed. When he's consistent and stops trying to do too much, he's a very solid player. he was anything but consistent last year though.

 

[Duck Off]

We could really use a bounceback season from Manson. I actually really liked Cam and Gudbranson together last year, so this would give us a pretty solid top 4. I would be very interested in a Djoos-Curran pairing, but I feel it may be one or the other playing in a given night.

I thought Gudbranson was very solid last year. a little overpaid, but he was a good addition to the blueline.

 

[Leonardo87]

I thought Gudbranson was very solid last year. a little overpaid, but he was a good addition to the blueline.

I liked the Fowler and Gudbrandson pairing, thought Fowler was having his best season before everything happened. Manson when he is on his game is good, sadly he is too inconsistent. I think the Ducks Top 4D is above average for the league when healthy and all playing well. Sadly, that only happened in very few games this past season. The injuries were just too much to take this year.

 

[Paul4587]

I liked the Fowler and Gudbrandson pairing, thought Fowler was having his best season before everything happened. Manson when he is on his game is good, sadly he is too inconsistent. I think the Ducks Top 4D is above average for the league when healthy and all playing well. Sadly, that only happened in very few games this past season. The injuries were just too much to take this year.

Fowler was having a good bounce back year but I didn’t think it was close to him at his best. 13-14 and 16-17 (at least the first half) were really strong years for him. Last season was good but it was no coincidence that he had a bounce back year when he wasn’t asked to do any of the heavy lifting in terms of playing against top players or playing loads on the PK.

 

[Dirk316]

I thought Gudbranson was very solid last year. a little overpaid, but he was a good addition to the blueline.

The way he played last season and if he continues id say he's actually underpaid. Did a great job

 

[WhatTheDuck]

In the rumor section on EP they have Curran returning to Rogle BK.

 

[Static]

In the rumor section on EP they have Curran returning to Rogle BK.

As a loan?

 

[WhatTheDuck]

As a loan?

It doesn't specify (and I'm just seeing now that the rumor is about a month old) but I'd assume it would be a loan if true.