Ducks won't retain, They'll have way too many very good players that the ducks will have to sign before the retention is of the books, and they should realistically be competitive in the next two years or so

Yeah, no, count the Ducks out on retaining 10+ million across 4+ seasons, and that's before we get into any other parts about the deal.

Just a note to you and everyone else who dials up "Anaheim" to retain on big-ticket players like Karlsson or Meier: I know that Anaheim is the first team that comes up on the menu, but with Klingberg, Kulikov, Silfverberg and Shattenkirk on the market and potential offers for Henrique, we'll probably need all three retention slots this time around. And with particular respect to Karlsson (and generally, for any multi-season retention), EK is owed $39 million over his last four years, so retaining 20% or 25% of that is simply out of the question for a team that operates on an internal cap well below the "standard" ceiling.