Player Review: Sami Vatanen

As part of the AnaheimDucks.com annual Player Reviews, we will be featuring a different Ducks player throughout the coming weeks, in numerical uniform number order. Each review will include key stats, a highlight from last season and an outlook for 2016-17.

By Kyle Shohara AnaheimDucks.com

The 2016-17 regular season was another step forward in the development of defenseman Sami Vatanen, who once again made his presence known on the Ducks blueline. His offensive instincts made him a constant threat on the attack and on the power play, and it showed in the form of a personal-best 38-point season.

The 25-year-old established career highs in points, assists (29) and appearances (71), and finished the regular season as the club’s leading defenseman in scoring, game-winning goals (2), assists, points per game (0.54) and power-play points (19; 4g/15a), and second in goals (9). Vatanen was Anaheim’s highest scoring defenseman since Lubomir Visnovsky (18-50=68) and Cam Fowler (10-30=40) in 2010-11.

As a pending restricted free agent, the Ducks wasted no time locking him down. On June 18, …

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