Where Does Kodie Curran Fit With The Anaheim Ducks?

The Anaheim Ducks announced on Monday that they had signed defenseman Kodie Curran to a two-year year, one-way deal worth a total of $2 million according to Cap Friendly. 

Curran’s name is a surprise addition to the Ducks’ organization. Undrafted, the 30-year old Swedish Hockey League 2019-20 Most Valuable Player and Defenseman of the Year took the road less traveled to hockey’s highest level, featuring a possibly unprecedented path through the Alberta Junior Hockey League, Canadian university hockey, ECHL, AHL, the Danish pro league, the Norwegian pro league, and finally the SHL before making the leap. Quite the travel log, and the accolades he amassed in a robust Swedish league presumably drew league-wide interest.

The 30-year old blueliner amassed 49 points in 48 games for Rogle, finishing second in league scoring thanks to his solid offensive skill set, an impressive feat for a defenseman. The Ducks are no strangers to signing European league free agents. Jani Hakanpaa was plucked from the Finnish Liiga last summer, eventually finding his way into Anaheim’s lineup, a feel-good story for the former fourth-round St. Louis Blues pick capped by a one-year extension. Anton Rodin, a former second-round Vancouver Canucks pick who had since moved on to Switzerland, signed a one-year deal with Anaheim in the 2018 off-season, but with a much different outcome, as both sides agreed to mutually terminate the deal after he failed to make the team out of training camp.

Neither Rodin nor Hakanpaa performed anywhere close to Curran in their respective leagues before signing with Anaheim. Even so, it should be noted that a journeyman with no NHL track record managed to surpass the deals of two former drafts picks by landing a two-year deal at a $1 million AAV, which speaks both to the excellent run he’s had in Sweden, as well as the distinct possibility of a much wider market for his services.

Most notable in all of this from an Anaheim perspective, however, is the way Curran holds his stick: a left-shooting defenseman, which the Ducks have no shortage of. Anaheim currently has the following left-shooting defensemen either on their roster, in the minors, or in restricted free agency: Cam Fowler, Hampus Lindholm, Christian Djoos, Jacob Larsson, Brendan Guhle, and Josh Mahura.

Fowler and Lindholm are locks for the NHL roster. Djoos carved a niche in limited action after being acquired at the trade deadline, and was recently inked to a one-year extension. Larsson was a regular under head coach Dallas Eakins, dressing for 60 games. The Ducks’ former first-round pick in 2015 is a restricted free agent, and his usage would suggest the club is committed to seeing him develop further. 

Guhle was acquired for the once highly-touted Brandon Montour, but spent the season shuttling between San Diego and Anaheim after showing some initial promise in 2018-19. Even so, he was extended for another two years. Mahura, 22, has one more season before reaching restricted free agency and although he has shown well in the AHL, has yet to establish himself at the NHL level. 

A reminder: in most instances, teams carry a maximum of four left-shooting defenseman on their active roster. So, to have four names outside of the obvious locks in Fowler and Lindholm that could conceivably fill an NHL role is fairly uncommon. The calculus was already dense even before adding Curran’s name into the equation. Now, that intensifies.

Perhaps the Ducks are trying to prove conventional wisdom wrong; that the need to have a perfect symmetry of a left-shot and right-shot on each pairing has become overrated. Or perhaps more pragmatically, they aren’t sold long term on many of these lefties. As previously mentioned, Guhle has slipped a bit. Even though Larsson was a fixture in the lineup, he looked lost in his own zone at times. Djoos was a nice little story, but he had been cast off of Washington’s roster before getting to Anaheim, so management can’t quite etch his name into stone yet either. Mahura, for all his offensive gifts, does not seem to have the full trust of the coaching staff. 

Curran, for all his exploits in Sweden, is a total unknown at the NHL level. Although the majority of his hockey-playing life has been spent on North American-sized ice, his game took off on the larger sheets of Sweden. He made the most of the additional time and space, and now he will have to bring that same confidence in both tighter quarters and at the fastest pace he’ll have yet experienced. 

General manager Bob Murray clearly believes that Curran can make the transition, or else he wouldn’t have committed to him for two years. Murray’s blueline commitments are starting to spread thin, however, and eventually a defined pecking order needs to form. The organization might hope that the elevated internal competition unearths that elusive hierarchy. Prospects like Mahura, Guhle, and even Larsson will have to elevate their games if they want to be a part of the Ducks’ future. The same goes for Djoos, as the pressure to validate his late-season surge will only grow. Plenty of praise should go Curran’s way for his unique journey to the NHL, but the domino effect of his arrival may prove to be equally fascinating in its own right.