Philadelphia's massive play for the young star puts Anaheim in a high-stakes bind. As a historic decision looms, the hockey world awaits a potential cycle of vengeance.
Decision day for Pat Verbeek and the Anaheim Ducks creeps ever closer toward a decision on whether or not they’ll match the historic five-year, $18 million AAV offer sheet Leo Carlsson signed with the Philadelphia Flyers on July 3.
The Ducks will need to decide by July 10, and if they should choose not to match, they would receive the Flyers’ next four first-round picks as compensation.
Traditionally in the NHL, offer sheets have been a severely underutilized tool in the arsenal of general managers. Year after year, there have been young RFAs on cap-strapped teams who were ripe for offer sheets, only to then be left to settle for far less term and dollar value than they were likely worth.
Aspects like loyalty to fellow NHL GMs, reluctance to “upset the apple cart,” or compensation price factored into teams’ unwillingness to explore extending offer sheets to players with opposing clubs.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of a previous lack of offer sheets, however, was the fear of retaliation.
By extending an offer sheet to a player on an opposing team (and having that player sign it), a wrench is, more often than not, thrown in the building plans of the team who is now forced to match or accept compensation.
By nature, offer sheets are somewhat petty, as one team is attempting to “poach” a young player from another organization, and typically, if they have designs on achieving that goal, they have to make the offer sheet extremely difficult to match. It’s typically accomplished by overpaying for the player and carefully analyzing their opponent’s salary cap situation in the present and future.
GMs must place opponents in an uncomfortable position when extending offer sheets. GMs do not like discomfort, and they do not like their plans thwarted. Retaliation is always a looming threat in these scenarios.
In 2019, the Montreal Canadiens signed Carolina Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho to an offer sheet. The Canes matched, but held a grudge, and they, in turn, signed Habs center Jesperi Kotkaniemi to an offer sheet of their own in 2021. The Habs declined to match, and Kotkaniemi became a member of the Hurricanes.
In 2024, the last time an offer sheet was successful, the St. Louis Blues signed Edmonton Oilers players Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway to dueling offer sheets. Seemingly in an effort to ensure that the offer sheets would go unmatched and that there would be no retaliation on Edmonton’s part, St. Louis parted with an additional pick and a prospect to accompany the designated compensation.
Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn ImagesSo now, whatever the outcome is with the Ducks, Flyers, and Carlsson, a question becomes, “Will Pat Verbeek retaliate in the future?”
Perhaps the more pertinent question is, “Can he retaliate?”
If the Ducks decide to match the OS for Carlsson, they are likely going to be up against the salary cap ceiling for the foreseeable future. They will have sizable contracts like Alex Killorn ($6.25 million AAV), Chris Kreider ($6.5 million AAV), Frank Vatrano ($4.5 million), and Mikael Granlund ($7 million AAV) coming off their sheet in the next two years. However, they’ll have to extend Cutter Gauthier (22) this summer. Beckett Sennecke (20) will need an extension in the next couple of years (RFA in 2028), and, if everything goes well with their development, Roger McQueen (19), Tristan Luneau (22), and Stian Solbeg (20), etc., could require hefty salaries as well.
The fallout of this offer sheet to Leo Carlsson will have ripple effects throughout the Ducks organization and league-wide, likely ending with players requiring higher dollar amounts and at younger ages.
All that is to say, if the Ducks decide to match Carlsson’s offer sheet, there won’t be room under the salary cap for a retaliatory offer sheet extended to one of Philadelphia’s current or future RFAs.
The only path that could lead to the Ducks tendering an offer sheet to a Flyers RFA, now or in the future, would start with Anaheim not matching Carlsson’s. This scenario was also seemingly calculated by Flyers GM Daniel Briere, as his only current RFAs who were eligible for offer sheets (Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale) have since filed for arbitration and are no longer eligible. Of course, they’re also former members of the Anaheim Ducks who had contentious negotiations with Pat Verbeek, so their likelihood of signing an offer sheet with the Ducks was slim-to-none, regardless.
Philadelphia does have a somewhat deep pool of young players and prospects who, if they reach RFA status, could be susceptible to signing offer sheets. Matvei Michkov (7th overall in 2023) will be an RFA in 2027. Porter Martone (6th in ’25), Denver Barkey (9th in ’23), Oliver Bonk (22nd in ’23), and Alex Bump (133rd in ’22) will all be RFAs in 2028. And Jett Luchenko (13th in ’24) will be an RFA in 2029.
The rub with Anaheim potentially tendering offer sheets to any RFAs in the event that they lose Leo Carlsson is that none of the players they do so with will have the impact of Leo Carlsson. As good as players like Michkov and Martone are, they will likely never equate to the value of a true NHL #1 center.
Another factor will be that Anaheim would have to part with their own picks as compensation, and those picks will be unprotected. If the Ducks move forward without Carlsson on their depth chart, they’ll likely return to selecting much higher in the NHL Draft, and the picks they would theoretically surrender could be top-ten, five, or even first overall; another devastating outcome.
Essentially, if the Ducks match Leo Carlsson’s offer sheet, they likely can’t retaliate. If they don’t match, they probably shouldn’t retaliate. The only avenue where this would be advisable is if the Ducks were to confidently remain a competitive playoff team, which would require a combination of skill and luck on Verbeek’s part without their young, talented superstar center.
There are layers to how brilliant this offer sheet was from Daniel Briere and the Philadelphia Flyers.
