Flyers tender offer sheet to Ducks' star Carlsson
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- Philadelphia Flyers tendered a five-year offer sheet to Leo Carlsson worth $18 million annually on Friday, an AAV that would make the 21-year-old center the NHL's highest-paid player.
- Anaheim Ducks have seven days to match the offer under the NHL/NHLPA CBA; if they decline, they receive four first-round picks from Philadelphia over the next four seasons as compensation.
- Carlsson posted 29 goals and 67 points in 70 games this season and added four goals and 11 assists across a 12-game playoff run that pushed Anaheim to the second round for the first time since 2018.
- Anaheim enters the decision with $35.173 million in projected cap space per PuckPedia, but still must sign two other prominent RFAs — Cutter Gauthier and Pavel Mintyukov — after a free agency where that need limited the Ducks' spending.
- Philadelphia projects more than $29 million in cap space, and adding Carlsson's $18M hit would still leave room to extend RFA center Trevor Zegras, whom the Flyers acquired from Anaheim last June.
- The offer sheet tops the league's current highest AAV held by Leon Draisaitl at $14 million per year and comes one day after the New Jersey Devils submitted a separate one-year, $4.775 million offer sheet to Utah's Barrett Hayton.
Why it matters: Anaheim must choose between paying a 21-year-old nearly $4 million more per year than the current league-high AAV — a number that eats more than half of the Ducks' open cap room — or watching a franchise centerpiece walk for four first-rounders while still owing new deals to Gauthier and Mintyukov. The Flyers, meanwhile, keep the cap flexibility to add Zegras on top of Carlsson.
