The Anaheim Ducks have matched the Philadelphia Flyers’ offer sheet for centre Leo Carlsson, keeping their rising young star at an extraordinary cost.
The Ducks announced their decision Thursday on the 21-year-old Carlsson, who is now the NHL’s highest-paid player under the five-year, $90 million deal extended by the Flyers one week ago.
“It’s going to be a special feeling, having this pressure,” said Carlsson, who wasn’t told the Ducks were matching the offer sheet until shortly before the decision was made public. “I always wanted to be a Duck. It’s my home, too. I’m just super excited to be back.”
Carlsson signed the Flyers’ offer sheet as a restricted free agent after a year of fruitless negotiations with Anaheim general manager Pat Verbeek, whose typical hardline approach in contract talks with his restricted free agents backfired tremendously this time.
Carlsson’s new contract is worth much more than the league expected the Swedish youngster would get as a restricted free agent, and the $18 million average annual value is significantly more than he had already indicated he would accept. The deal surpasses the salary of Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov, who would have been the NHL’s highest-paid player at $17 million.
Carlsson’s first significant contract negotiations landed him a huge payday — and it might have affected the NHL’s entire salary structure going forward, thanks to the Flyers’ boldness. He emerged from the experience with excitement about the Ducks’ future and no public qualms about the way everything went down.
“It’s a lot of business in hockey,” Carlsson said. “I knew it, obviously, but it’s more business than I thought. [The details are] something for my agent to answer more on, but [the offer sheet] was just too good to pass on. I think everybody understands that. I talked to my teammates a lot, and everybody was just happy for me and super-supportive with the decision I made.”
The Flyers failed to land their long-sought No. 1 centre in unusual fashion by swiping Carlsson, but the attempt showed general manager Danny Briere’s determination to improve his roster at all costs. The Ducks would have received four first-round draft picks from Philadelphia if they hadn’t matched the offer sheet.
Future negotiations will reveal whether Briere significantly skewed the NHL’s valuations of young talent by offering more than nearly all observers thought Carlsson could get. The structure of Philadelphia’s offer sheet also front-loaded Carlsson’s contract with costly signing bonuses in another departure from many NHL contracts.
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Fortunately for the Ducks, billionaire owner Henry Samueli didn’t hesitate to make that hefty financial commitment.
“Matching the offer sheet was an easy decision, as Pat has intelligently left enough cap space to give us the ability to retain Leo,” Henry and Susan Samueli said in a statement. “We have extremely high expectations for Leo. We firmly believe he will continue his strong growth trajectory and become one of the truly elite centers in the league while continuing to make a strong impact in our community.”
Although the Ducks retained their most important young player, Verbeek’s inability to get a deal done before he was forced into it by Philadelphia seems almost certain to compromise Anaheim’s roster-building efforts for years to come. The Ducks have had a rough summer after ending their seven-season playoff drought with a second-round run that stamped them as a near-future contender.
After keeping the Ducks’ payroll well under the salary cap during his tenure, Verbeek will be spending Samueli’s money at the limit of the cap next season after signaling vulnerability to the league while he managed his crop of young talent.
Verbeek still hasn’t signed 41-goal scorer Cutter Gauthier, a restricted free agent who is not eligible to receive an offer sheet. Anaheim signed defenceman Pavel Mintyukov to a five-year, $36 million deal last week, again going well over the expected market rate for a restricted free agent who isn’t on Carlsson’s level of talent but was widely rumoured to be on the verge of signing an offer sheet.
Verbeek parted ways with four key defencemen from last season’s team — Jacob Trouba, captain Radko Gudas, Olen Zellweger and John Carlson — and hasn’t replaced them with any significant signings beyond journeyman Nick Jensen. Anaheim also traded Mason McTavish, a key component of its team for several seasons, to St. Louis for draft picks after the centre regressed last season.
This pricey deal for Carlsson is the latest chapter in Verbeek’s history of antagonistic negotiations with Anaheim’s free agents.
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Trevor Zegras, Jamie Drysdale and McTavish all held out of training camp in recent years when they couldn’t get a deal done with Verbeek, who eventually signed all three, and later traded them all. Verbeek did two of those deals with the Flyers, gaining praise for sending Drysdale in a package for Gauthier, but getting criticism from Ducks fans for giving up on the high-scoring Zegras last summer.
Carlsson was the No. 2 choice in the 2023 draft behind Connor Bedard, and he has emerged as one of the NHL’s top young playmakers.
Although he didn’t produce points at a rate commensurate with his new salary during his first three seasons, almost everyone believes Carlsson can become one of the best centers in hockey, so his deal might eventually look downright affordable.
He scored 67 points in 70 games last season despite being limited for a lengthy stretch by a leg injury, and he added 11 points in 12 games during his first postseason experience.
“I’m going to grow as a player, too,” Carlsson said. “I’ve done that every year so far. Trying to get away from these slumps I’ve been having during seasons. Trying to stay at the highest level I can all season long.”
Carlsson is expected to be an unrestricted free agent when this contract ends in 2031, putting him in line for another massive payday at just 26 years old.
Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon’s decision to include his family on the Stanley Cup has become a lightning rod for controversy online.
Dundon, his wife Veruschka, and children Caden, Dax, Drew, Blake and Tagan are the first names engraved on the historic trophy’s side to immortalize Carolina’s 2025-26 team after the Hurricanes won the NHL championship in June.
The Dundon names appear before any players or staff, including team captain and Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jordan Staal, general manager Eric Tulsky and head coach Rod Brind’Amour.
Joel Nystrom, who played in 38 regular-season games for the Hurricanes this past season, did not have his name engraved into the Cup. The NHL’s threshold for appearing on the Cup is 41 regular-season games or one Stanley Cup final game with the winning team, but teams can petition the league for an exemption.
Brett Jefferson, Marc Grandisson and Bobby Farnham were announced as new investors in the organization on March 12, becoming part of the ownership group. Their names were also left off the trophy.
The Hurricanes offered no comment when contacted by The Canadian Press.
Carolina beat the Vegas Golden Knights in six games for the Hurricanes’ second title.
“I will always remember the top 2 lines of Dundons and how they tilted the ice,” said Dan Katz, a Chicago-based commentator for Barstool Sports in a post to social media website X.
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“Putting your wife and kids names on the cup is embarrassing and that’s coming from a guy that is doing podcasts in my moms basement,” tweeted Rob Gucci.
Another social media user with the handle “Duddy Buddy” joked that there were “more Dundons than an episode of Law and Order,” referring to the long-running TV series’ dramatic music between scenes.
When reached for comment the Hockey Hall of Fame said it is not directly involved with the engraving of the Cup, just its care.
It’s not the first time the name of an owners’ relative was engraved on the Cup.
In 1984, then-Oilers owner Peter Pocklington had his father’s name engraved on the trophy. It was later chiselled over with X’s as Basil Pocklington had nothing to do with the win.
Peter Pocklington later attributed it to a clerical mixup.
It appears the practice of adding family members is no longer a problem, however. Owner Vincent Viola included four relatives when the Florida Panthers were engraved on the Cup in 2025.
