Cutter Gauthier's next contract with the Ducks comes into focus and it's huge
Photo credit: Alan Poizner-Imagn Images
Cutter Gauthier's next contract is being written in Philadelphia, and the Anaheim Ducks are the ones who have to sign it.
Anthony Di Marco of Daily Faceoff told TSN Radio he expects Gauthier between $16 million and $17 million annually, above Connor Bedard and below Leo Carlsson.
Bedard signed for five years at $15 million on July 18. Carlsson signed a five-year, $90 million deal at $18 million after the Ducks matched a Philadelphia Flyers offer sheet.
Those are the two goalposts.
Philadelphia built one of them.
The team that gave him away set his market
Philadelphia drafted Gauthier fifth overall in 2022, then traded him to Anaheim in January 2024 for Jamie Drysdale and a second-round pick after he refused to sign.
Two and a half years later, the Flyers tendered the offer sheet that reset Anaheim's entire internal pay scale.
General manager Pat Verbeek matched at $18 million. That number is now the ceiling Kurt Overhardt negotiates against on Gauthier's behalf.
The Flyers lost the player, then raised the price of keeping him.
The real cost of matching an offer sheet
Every GM prices an offer sheet as a single transaction: match the money, keep the player, move on.
That math is incomplete.
Anaheim matched one contract and inherited a second one, because a matched deal becomes the comparable every restricted free agent behind it argues from.
Gauthier led the Ducks with 41 goals and 69 points in 76 games on a $950,000 cap hit, then added 12 points in 12 playoff games.
Beckett Sennecke needs a deal in two years. Verbeek is now negotiating against a number Danny Briere chose.
That lesson is league-wide.
Matching an offer sheet does not end the bill, it sets the rate for everyone behind him.
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