from Eric Stephens of the OC Register,

Seen as the potential leader of the Ducks' blue line, Lindholm, 22, led the defense corps with 10 goals and 115 blocked shots last season. Lindholm had 28 points in 2015-16 and his plus-6 rating led the Ducks in their playoff series against Nashville.

Lindholm's average annual salary is $5.25 million, around the amount the Ducks were willing to do on a long-term deal. He will make $3 million this season, $6 million in 2017-18, $6.75 million in 2018-19, $5.25 million in 2019-20, $3.75 million in 2020-21 and $6.75 million in 2021-22.

Lindholm has remained in Sweden, missing all of training camp and the first eight games of the season as Ducks general manager Bob Murray and Lindholm's agent, Claude Lemieux, continually worked to close what had been a wide gap in negotiations.

Using other young defensemen such as Toronto's Morgan Rielly, Columbus's Seth Jones and Buffalo's Rasmus Ristolainen as comparables, Murray ultimately held firm on not going to the $5.4 million annual range that Jones and Ristolainen are making.

"It’s a business and Claude Lemieux, he had a job to do and we had a job to do," Murray said. "We wanted to get it at a fair number for the organzation so we can try to move forward with this group as best we can because, as I said before, I wanted to give this group another shot.

"I’m going to do everything in my power to keep it that way."

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