Ducks Lock Up Tyson Hinds After His First NHL Playoff Assist Made Team History

The Anaheim Ducks made sure one of their young defensemen won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. On Tuesday, the team signed Tyson Hinds to a two-year, one-way contract extension worth $900,000 annually, a deal that runs through the 2027-28 season. That’s the first one-way NHL contract for the 23-year-old, and it keeps him under team control as a restricted free agent when it expires.

Hinds first cracked the NHL roster during the 2025-26 campaign after being selected in the third round of the 2021 draft. He only played six regular-season games, logging a plus-one rating and two penalty minutes while averaging just over 15 and a half minutes of ice time. No points in the regular season, but things changed once the playoffs started.

A postseason debut to remember

Hinds skated in nine of Anaheim’s 12 playoff games last spring. In Game 3 of the opening round against the Edmonton Oilers on April 24, 2026, he picked up his first career NHL point — an assist. That made him only the second player in Ducks franchise history to record his first NHL point in the postseason. He finished the playoffs with one assist and averaged 11 minutes a night.

Where he really shined

Most of Hinds’ season was spent with the AHL’s San Diego Gulls, and that’s where he put up career-best numbers. He scored five goals and added 14 assists for 19 points in 62 games, along with a plus-16 rating and 21 penalty minutes. Those were personal highs in goals, points and plus-minus. Over 204 career AHL games, he’s got 11 goals, 36 assists and 47 points, plus 105 penalty minutes. His development has been steady: 10 points in 71 games during 2023-24, then 18 points in 71 contests the next season.

Before turning pro, Hinds was a standout in the QMJHL with the Sherbrooke Phoenix. In his final junior year (2022-23), he put up 11 goals and 43 assists for 54 points in 56 games and won the Kevin Lowe Trophy as the league’s Best Defensive Defenseman. He led all QMJHL blueliners with a plus-61 rating, ranked sixth in points per game among defensemen (0.96), and finished eighth in total points and assists. That plus-61 was the highest in the league since 2002-03 and the fifth-best ever by a QMJHL defenseman.

Hinds also helped Canada win gold at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship, scoring two goals in seven tournament games with a plus-nine rating.