Only a little more than a week removed from the extension of Ryan Getzlaf, the Anahiem Ducks announced on Monday evening that they’ve agreed to an eight-year extension with forward Corey Perry worth $69 million. Perry was set to become an unrestricted free agent after this season and the Ducks organization felt that they couldn’t risk letting him hit the open market.
Between the Getzlaf and Perry signings, the Ducks have a significant amount of cap space committed — $16.875 million to be precise — on players who are arguably on the backside of their prime. If you add the combined salaries of Jonas Hiller and Bobby Ryan to that amount, that’s about 38 percent of this year’s cap tied up between the four men. Remember that the cap will decrease during the offseason, meaning that percentage will only increase. Anaheim GM Bob Murray has taken a serious gamble by signing Perry for such a high price, and now he must hope he can produce at the same rate over the next eight years.
One thing that comes to mind with this contract is the fact that it seems like general managers can’t help themselves by signing players to such exorbitant contracts. Fans and players lost half of this season due to a work stoppage because the owners had cried poverty when it was them agreeing to pay players such a large amount of money. Had the term cap and variance percentage not been in place for the Perry extension and the Getzlaf extension, one must wonder what the real worth of those contracts would’ve been.
