The Anaheim Ducks just got put in an impossible spot. And frankly, it’s a spot they should have seen coming.
Leo Carlsson, their 21-year-old top-line center, signed an offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers. Five years. $18 million per season. That would make him the highest-paid player in the league by average annual value when the puck drops next year. The Ducks have seven days to match or let him go. There’s no third option here.
So what do you do when a division rival tries to steal your franchise center? You match. You figure out the cap later. You don’t let a 21-year-old who just helped pull you out of years of misery walk away for draft picks.
Why the Ducks can’t go back now
Anaheim spent seven straight seasons outside the playoffs. Seven. That’s a lifetime in hockey. Then Joel Quenneville showed up in 2025-26 and immediately flipped things. The Ducks knocked off the Oilers in the first round. Carlsson put up 67 points in the regular season and added 11 more in the postseason. He was a huge part of that turnaround.
Letting him leave now, after finally climbing out of the basement, would be a gut punch to the locker room and the fanbase. Matching means you keep your best young player. It also means you pay him $39 million in the next 12 months, because the offer sheet is front-loaded with signing bonuses, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. That’s real cash, not cap space. And that’s where it gets complicated.
The Flyers waited and struck
Philly general manager Daniel Briere had cap space and draft picks to burn. And he clearly remembered that trade from January 2024, when the Ducks landed Cutter Gauthier from the Flyers for Jamie Drysdale. Gauthier scored 40 goals for Anaheim last season and is still public enemy No. 1 in Philadelphia. Briere took two years to respond, but that’s what this offer sheet is. Revenge, hockey style.
If the Flyers pull this off, they’d have three former Ducks on their roster: Carlsson, Drysdale and Trevor Zegras. In a weak Metropolitan Division, that trio could be dangerous.
The Cutter Gauthier factor
Gauthier is also a restricted free agent this summer, but he’s not eligible for an offer sheet. So he’s coming back to Anaheim unless he gets traded. That means the Ducks need to squeeze Carlsson’s $18 million, whatever Gauthier gets and the rest of the roster under a salary cap that doesn’t care about your good intentions.
But the alternative is losing your top-line center. The guy who clicks with Gauthier. The guy who just helped win a playoff round. Anaheim should pay whatever it takes to keep that duo together. You don’t rebuild for seven years and then bail when the hard part is over.
This is going to be an ownership decision as much as a hockey one. That $39 million cash hit in year one is not nothing. But letting Carlsson walk would be a signal that the Ducks aren’t serious about winning now. And after seven years of losing, that’s a signal they can’t afford to send.
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