Hampus Lindholm will not join the Ducks until the defenseman has a deal in place with the team, his agent confirmed Thursday.

“Our plan is to report to the team once we have a contract signed,” said Claude Lemieux, who represents Lindholm. “Until then Hampus is training in Sweden.”

Lemieux, the former NHL forward and most valuable player of the 1995 Stanley Cup playoffs, is in a difficult negotiation with Ducks general manager Bob Murray and the two sides remain far apart on a new contract for the rising 22-year-old standout.

Both want long-term commitments for a defender who could potentially become the anchor of the Ducks’ blue line. But there is a significant difference between Lemieux’s asking price and the amount the Ducks are willing to go to.

According to TSN hockey reporter Bob McKenzie, Lemieux views Lindholm as a comparable to Florida’s Aaron Ekblad in terms of ability and prominence on the team. In July, Ekblad signed an eight-year extension that carries an average annual value of $7.5 million.

It isn’t known if Lemieux wants exactly that, but as McKenzie reports, it is believed that he sees Lindholm as being worth at least $6 million annually, if not around $6.5 million. The Ducks would prefer to have Lindholm come in around $5 million to$5.5 million, near what Columbus gave Seth Jones and Toronto gave Morgan Rielly for six years.

Settling on a two-year bridge deal is not up for discussion for the time being. The Ducks prefer to gain some cost certainly and buy some years of Lindholm’s unrestricted free agency instead of potentially seeing Lindholm ask for a mega-deal in 2018.

“As usual, we do not comment on current negotiations,” Ducks general manager Bob Murray said.

Lemieux said talks continue. Because Lindholm had no arbitration rights this summer, the only leverage he has is to hold out.

“We are working on a long-term agreement for Hampus,” Lemieux said in a text to the Register. “We have been negotiating for a while and have exchanged multiple proposals. I will say that we, both the team and ourselves, are working on getting this resolved ASAP.”

Lindholm did not win Calder Trophy as Ekblad did in 2015, but he’s become a fixture with the Ducks in his three seasons. Many already see the Swede as the Ducks’ best individual defender who is just tapping into his offensive potential.

It’s not the only sticky situation the Ducks are dealing with. They’ve also got an impasse to break through with center Rickard Rakell. Rakell is also in Sweden and recovering from corrective surgery following a March appendectomy.

Rakell has yet to resume his training after being unable to play for his homeland in the World Cup of Hockey. But it is believed that while the Ducks would prefer to stay lower than Rakell’s six-year, $24 million asking price, they’ve made more headway with the center’s agent, Peter Wallen.

In an e-mail to the Register, Wallen confirmed as much while saying Rakell has slowly started to work out again and will need “a couple of weeks” to get back in top shape. “Back negotiating,” Wallen said. “More frequently now.”

Lindholm and Rakell share an Orange County residence during the season. Neither has gone the route of Winnipeg’s Jacob Trouba or Arizona’s Tobias Rieder in having their agents ask for a trade.

The Ducks have had tough contract talks with other players, but they’ve rarely seen players hold out, whether in training camp or into the season. Bobby Ryan was in a 2010 summer duel, but he signed a five-year deal three days before camp.

Ducks coach Randy Carlyle has said he wants the two in camp but added that he can’t coach players who aren’t there. Left wing Andrew Cogliano isn’t going to be critical of his teammates and doesn’t believe their holdouts will sit poorly in the dressing room.

“I think everyone in the hockey part knows there’s a business side of things,” Cogliano said. “We get that. Everyone wants to do their contracts and everyone wants the right to negotiate and do that side of it. From my end and from other guys’ ends, they just want those guys signed. We understand how important those guys are to our team.

“I don’t see those situations going too far because I think they’re two players that want to play. And they’re two players that, I think, can find common ground with the team and we hope they do.”

NOTES

The Ducks trimmed four more players off their camp roster, sending defenseman Josh Mahura, centers Sam Steel and Tyler Soy and right wing Deven Sideroff back to juniors. All four play in the Western Hockey League. … With the team off Thursday, there were no injury updates on left wings Max Jones and Nick Ritchie. Both were hurt in their first preseason games.

Contact the writer: estephens@scng.com