Ducks sign winger Carson Meyer to a 1-year contract

The Ducks signed winger Carson Meyer, the team announced Wednesday in a news release.

Agreeing to a two-way deal, Meyer, 26, is the second player to sign with the Ducks in the past two days after the team added Jansen Harkins on Tuesday.

Like Harkins, whom the Ducks added on a one-way deal, Meyer split time between the AHL and NHL last season and in recent campaigns, all as part of the Columbus Blue Jackets organization. Furthermore, competitiveness and an indefatigable motor are the major draws for Harkins and Meyer. Despite Meyers’ growth as a top-line winger in the minors, his NHL game is tuned for maximum effort in short spurts.

“He’s intense. He brings a lot of energy. He’s a guy who can make plays. He’s good on the forecheck,” former Columbus coach Pascal Vincent told reporters last season. “He’s also a smart player that can create some offense.”

Meyer has 41 games of NHL experience split almost evenly across three years. Although he posted just a goal and an assist in 14 NHL games in 2023-24, his numbers in the minors marked career highs in goals (22), points (37) and penalty minutes (65). He had spent considerable time on his shot over last summer despite continuing to focus on the physical side of his game, he told reporters in Columbus.

Save for a couple years in Nebraska as a junior player, Meyer has been an Ohioan wire to wire. The Powell, Ohio, native was a Junior Blue Jacket before attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, before transferring to Ohio State in Columbus and then catching on with the Blue Jackets, primarily with their AHL affiliate in Cleveland.

Meyer averaged about nine minutes a game last season at the NHL level and had what otherwise could have been his longest stint yet cut short by an oblique injury.

Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek has said he wanted to transform the Ducks’ bottom six, making it faster, more aggressive and simply more impactful than in recent seasons. He also said he wanted the Ducks’ AHL affiliate, the San Diego Gulls, to improve, and players like Meyer and Harkins may serve either aim or both.

Overall, the Ducks may be paddling fervently under the water but they have only modest accomplishments to show above its surface. They are still jockeying around the top of the salary-cap-space leaderboard and thus far have made only lower- and mid-level additions: These two signings and the acquisition via two trades of veteran defenseman Brian Dumoulin and forward Robby Fabbri.