MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
In the first season of a four-year, $24 million contract, goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere set club records with a 2.12 goals-against average and .9224 save percentage. He was also the club's best player in the two games it won during an opening-round Stanley Cup playoff loss to Dallas, according to coach Randy Carlyle.

MOST DISAPPOINTING PLAYER
Acquired in a December trade that sent center Andy McDonald to St. Louis, veteran center Doug Weight was unable to produce much offense with the Ducks, managing just six goals and 14 points in 38 games. A healthy scratch in the first game of the playoffs, Weight registered just one postseason point, an assist, while averaging a mere 7 1/2 minutes of ice time.

FREE-AGENT FOCUS: The Ducks accomplished the first of their free-agent objectives April 29 by signing rookie center Ryan Carter to a three-year contract worth $1.875 million. Carter, 24, will receive $525,000 next season, $625,000 in 2009-10 and $725,000 in 2010-11. The club's top priority remains locking up restricted free-agent right wing Corey Perry, who led the Ducks with 29 goals, to a long-term contract, but that might have to wait until after free-agency season opens July 1. Backup goaltender Jonas Hiller is also a restricted free agent, one the Ducks would like back next season, but he could opt for a potentially more lucrative offer in Europe. Unrestricted free-agent right wing Teemu Selanne is expected to return to the Ducks if he chooses to continue his career.

PLAYER NOTES

--C Ryan Carter, who improved his stock dramatically during a rookie campaign that netted four goals and eight points in 34 games, signed a three-year, $1.875 million contract April 20. Carter, 24, will receive $525,000 next season, $625,000 in 2009-10 and $725,000 in 2010-11.

--RW Teemu Selanne surprised many by joining the Finnish national team for the IIHF World Championships in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Quebec City. A veteran of several international competitions and a silver-medal winner multiple times, Selanne is shooting for his first gold medal.

--RW Corey Perry declined any opportunity to potentially play for Team Canada in the IIHF World Championships in order to further rehabilitate the partially severed right-quadriceps tendon he suffered March 6 at Colorado. Perry, a restricted free agent, returned to score two goals and add an assist in the Ducks' final three Stanley Cup playoff games, but opted against any further action.

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