Ducks Sign Jakob Silfverberg to Five-Year Extension

The Anaheim Ducks announced today that they have signed forward Jakob Silfverberg to a five-year contract extension.

According to CapFriendly, Silfverberg’s extension will have an average annual value of $5.25 million, a raise from the $3.75 million AAV from his most recent four-year contract. The deal also includes an NTC that allows Silfverberg to reject a trade to 12 teams.

News of the signing being agreed to first broke a few days before the trade deadline in wake of the pending UFA being involved in plenty of trade speculation. Elliott Teaford of the OC Register first reported the deal on February 20th.

The deal couldn’t become official until now, however, because of a CBA rule called “tagging”. Essentially, the an NHL team is not allowed to have more money than the current salary cap committed to assets the next season. With Anaheim close to the cap for next season already, signing Silfverberg put them at risk of violating that rule. However, on March 1st, a 10% increase in the tagging clause amount allowed the Ducks to fit his new deal under that cap, making the contract official.

Since being acquired from the Ottawa Senators in a package exchanged for Bobby Ryan, Silfverberg has cemented himself as one of the Ducks best two-way forwards. As part of Anaheim’s shutdown line alongside Andrew Cogliano and Ryan Kesler, Silfverberg was routinely tasked with keeping teams top lines in check, while occasionally chipping in secondary scoring.

Since the trade of Cogliano to the Dallas Stars and with Kesler being demoted to more sheltered fourth-line minutes in light of a bad hip, Silfverberg has recently been put into more of an offensive role alongside Rickard Rakell.

The 28-year-old Swede has 214 points (99G, 115A) in 427 games played with Anaheim during the regular season to go along with 41 points (16G, 25A) in 57 playoff games.