from Mark Whicker of the LA Daily News,

Finally, those who doubted Corey Perry’s hockey future might be right.

It just took 14 seasons, four All-Star games and 372 goals.

They might not be right either.

The Ducks bought out Perry’s contract Wednesday. He had lost a step while the NHL had gained two. He wasn’t a first-line player anymore. Nobody inside the franchise could stomach watching him play on the fourth.

The quickest way to feel old is to watch Perry, 34, grow old, because he always played like Ryan Getzlaf’s rambunctious little brother. They were born six days apart, and Perry kept going where he didn’t belong, emerging with a goal, a welt and a smirk. That was his personal hat trick.

“People didn’t realize he was such a big guy,” said Sean O’Donnell, who played with and against Perry and shared that Stanley Cup in 2007. “But he had that baby face and that little head. He’d go to the net and stay there no matter what you did to him, and he’d figure out a way to score and you never knew how he did it.

“You loved him as a teammate because he would do anything to win. You didn’t like him as an opponent because he was a pain in the butt.”

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