Ducks' marquee free-agent signing to miss at least first month of the season

Alex Killorn’s regular-season start to his time in Anaheim is going to be delayed as the Ducks announced that the winger suffered a fractured finger on Wednesday night against San Jose. He is expected to miss the next four to six weeks.

The 34-year-old was one of the top forwards available in free agency and ultimately landed the richest deal when the Ducks gave him a four-year, $25M agreement. He’s coming off another career year with Tampa Bay, one that saw him record 27 goals and 37 assists in 82 games while adding five points in six playoff contests against Toronto.

While the Ducks aren't expected to be a playoff contender for a little while as they navigate through their rebuilding process, GM Pat Verbeek saw fit to add some veterans to his roster to help work with their young core. Killorn was expected to be a big part of that and likely would have lined up on the top line on opening night, but now, he’ll miss at least the first month of the season.

Killorn will be LTIR-eligible, but Anaheim isn’t anywhere close to needing to rely on that. With Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale still unsigned, the Ducks have more than $16M in cap space, per CapFriendly. Even when those two sign, they’ll be far enough below the $83.5M cap to not need to dip into LTIR.

There was some good news on the injury front for the Ducks, however, as John Gibson was a full participant in practice. He had left Friday’s contest at the midway mark due to an upper-body injury, but it appears that the issue was a minor one.