Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Ducks sign Heatley: one year, $1 million

Dany Heatley

Dany Heatley is on his way to Anaheim.

The former All-Star winger has agreed to a one-year, $1 million deal with the Ducks, per TSN. The deal is a pretty significant pay decreased for the 33-year-old, who just wrapped the last of a seven-year, $45 million deal -- a $7.5m cap hit -- and was allowed to hit free agency after the Wild showed no interest in bringing him back for a fourth season in Minnesota.

The book on Heatley in Minnesota was well-known. A lightning rod for criticism given his hefty paycheque and lack of output, he was subjected to numerous buyout rumors (only to be spared by a shoulder injury) and the longer his tenure in Minnesota went, the more questions were asked about his declining foot speed and ability to keep up at the NHL level.

That said, Wild GM Chuck Fletcher was full of praise for Heatley upon letting him go, telling the Pioneer Press the veteran winger was a “consummate professional” for the club.

Though he’s no longer an elite sniper -- Heatley had back-to-back 50-goal campaigns with Ottawa in 2005-06 and ’06-07 -- it’ll be interesting to see if he can recapture any of his old goalscoring prowess with the Ducks. Heatley had just 12 goals in 76 games for the Wild last year, got demoted to the fourth line on occasion and finished with a minus-18 rating... but Anaheim is pretty loaded at center right now with Ryan Getzlaf, Ryan Kesler and talented youngster Rickard Rakell.