{"id":493451,"date":"2026-07-03T15:47:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T19:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=493451"},"modified":"2026-07-03T15:47:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T19:47:01","slug":"leo-carlsson-offer-sheet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/07\/03\/leo-carlsson-offer-sheet\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Flyers Give Anaheim Ducks a Head-Scratching Decision With Leo Carlsson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/07\/01\/philadelphia-flyers-news-and-a-new-dan-vladar-contract\/\" target=\"_self\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> have handed the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/07\/01\/jensen-signs-anaheim-ducks\/\" target=\"_self\">Anaheim Ducks<\/a> a tough decision with a <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/carlsle01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leo Carlsson<\/a> offer sheet. The offer sheet tendered for Carlsson is a five-year deal worth $18 million per season. Carlsson will now be the highest-paid player in the NHL, surpassing <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kapriki01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kirill Kaprizov<\/a>&#8216;s $17 million cap hit on the Minnesota Wild.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We have tendered an offer sheet to Anaheim center Leo Carlsson. The offer is a five-year contract worth an average annual value (AAV) of $18M, which would require four of the Flyers first-round draft picks in each of the next four seasons as compensation. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nfhD4h6nEc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/nfhD4h6nEc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NHLFlyers\/status\/2073121657003106382?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 3, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Leo Carlsson Offer Sheet is A Huge Ripple For This Offseason<\/h2>\n<p>This is a very intriguing turn of events, as the Ducks will have just seven days to ponder whether to keep Carlsson at an $18 million cap hit, or to take the alternative option, which is to send him to the Flyers in exchange for Philadelphia&#8217;s next four first-round draft picks. The Ducks do have over $35 million in available cap space, so the Flyers could force the Ducks to lose half of their cap space, or the Flyers, who have over $29 million in cap space, could get a first-line centre. This is really the boldest of bold moves that Daniel Briere could make, but it could be extremely costly.<\/p>\n<p>Carlsson scored 29 goals and 38 assists for 67 points last season with the Ducks, and was the second-overall draft pick in 2023. The 21-year-old has the makings of an elite centre for a long time to come, but the question at this point is whether Carlsson is worth the price of four first-round draft picks or $18 million per season.<\/p>\n<p>Is there still some bad blood from the <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gauthcu01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cutter Gauthier<\/a> situation from the Flyers that they would give Ducks GM Pat Verbeek a tough choice? In any case, the ball is in Anaheim&#8217;s court now. The Ducks have made it clear that they will match any offer sheet given to Carlsson, but it would be difficult to say no to such a high price as well.<\/p>\n<p>This is an unprecedented situation that could set a precedent not only for future offer sheets but also for future contract extensions around the NHL. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Philadelphia Flyers have handed the Anaheim Ducks a tough decision with a Leo Carlsson offer sheet. The offer sheet tendered for Carlsson is a five-year deal worth $18 million per season. Carlsson will now be the highest-paid player in the NHL, surpassing Kirill Kaprizov&#8216;s $17 million cap hit on the Minnesota Wild. We have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5733,"featured_media":492446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,20,4547,34,4548],"tags":[5910,7589,662,2611,5996],"class_list":["post-493451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flyers","category-ducks","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-anaheim-ducks-news","tag-leo-carlsson","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-pat-verbeek","tag-philadelphia-flyers-news"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5733"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493451"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":493456,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493451\/revisions\/493456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}