The Anaheim Ducks and restricted free agent Cutter Gauthier have agreed to a six-year contract with an average annual value of $13.5 million, a deal that keeps one of the franchise’s cornerstone forwards in Southern California through the 2031-32 season.
The agreement, totaling $81 million, ends weeks of negotiations that intensified after Gauthier rejected a four-year, $52 million offer earlier this summer. The new structure gives the 22-year-old more term and security while landing in the $13 million to $14 million range that league insiders had projected as the likely landing zone.
Gauthier earned the payday. In 2025-26, his second full NHL season, he led the Ducks with 41 goals and 69 points in 76 games. He also paced the club with 11 power-play goals, seven game-winning goals and 285 shots. In the playoffs he added 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 12 games as Anaheim reached the Western Conference Second Round for the first time since 2018.
Those numbers placed him in rare company in franchise history. He became the fourth Duck to score 40 goals in a season, joining Teemu Selanne, Paul Kariya and Corey Perry. Over 159 career regular-season games he has 61 goals and 114 points.
The contract also reflects the new market for young scorers. San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini signed at $18.8 million per year, Chicago’s Connor Bedard at $15 million, and Gauthier’s teammate Leo Carlsson at $18 million after the Ducks matched a Philadelphia offer sheet. Gauthier, ineligible for an offer sheet of his own, still used those deals as leverage. A six-year term at $13.5 million AAV sits below Bedard’s annual number but buys Anaheim more years of control before Gauthier reaches unrestricted free agency.
General manager Pat Verbeek had limited room after matching Carlsson and extending defenseman Pavel Mintyukov. Moving veteran salary — including the recent termination of Chris Kreider’s contract — helped create space. The rising salary cap and the new collective bargaining agreement’s limits on eight-year deals and front-loaded structures also pushed both sides toward a six-year compromise before the old rules expired.
Gauthier arrived in Anaheim after Philadelphia selected him fifth overall in 2022 and later traded him. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound left wing, born in Skellefteå, Sweden, while his father Sean played professionally there, grew up in Arizona and starred at Boston College before turning pro. He wears No. 61 and has quickly become the Ducks’ most dangerous sniper.
For Anaheim, the signing is about more than one contract. Last season’s 43-33-6 finish and first playoff series win in nine years were built around Gauthier and Carlsson. Keeping both, even at a combined $31.5 million against the cap, signals that the Ducks intend to treat this core as the foundation of a longer contention window rather than a one-year surprise.
Training camp can now proceed with the leading goal scorer under contract. Gauthier remains a restricted free agent only in name; the paperwork makes him a Duck through his mid-20s. The next test is whether the production that justified $13.5 million a year continues as the supporting cast around him changes and the expectations rise.
