All eyes on the Flyers and Ducks.

With two days to go until a final resolution, the Philadelphia Flyers officially have the last remaining active offer sheet in the NHL with Leo Carlsson.

On Wednesday, ahead of their 5 p.m. deadline, the Utah Mammoth matched the one-year, $4.775 million offer sheet tendered to forward Barrett Hayton by the New Jersey Devils, setting some precedent for the Flyers and Anaheim Ducks.

Hayton, 26, is eligible to sign a contract extension on Jan. 1, but cannot be traded for one calendar year, and like Carlsson, there is little logic being followed by the matching team.

Hayton played bottom-six minutes for Utah last year and agreed to sign with the Devils by taking them up on the offer sheet, so by matching, the Mammoth pass up on a second-round pick for a player who tried to leave, won't play significant minutes, and could leave for nothing as an unrestricted free agent this time next year.

The Ducks have until 3 p.m. Friday to match the Flyers' eye-watering five-year, $90 million ($18 million AAV) offer sheet for Carlsson, and if they don't, they will receive four first-round picks from the Flyers.

Like Hayton, Carlsson provisionally agreed to leave his team, and the Flyers can offer Carlsson much more from a hockey perspective than the Ducks as currently constructed.

And should the Ducks match the Flyers' Carlsson offer sheet, they will have to do major roster surgery to become cap-compliant, with an already terrible defense, a shallow forward group, and a number of veteran forwards with prohibitive no-trade lists that greatly limit the potential suitors they'll have on the trade block.

But, with Hayton, the Mammoth, and the Devils all square without much fanfare, all eyes around the NHL now turn to the Flyers and Ducks.

The Flyers have entered uncharted territory with their bold move, and the final outcome, one way or another, will send shockwaves through the NHL in short order.

Comments
anonymous profile image
Powered by RoundtableBuilt on infrastructure designed for real-time media. Learn more at RTB.io.© Roundtable 2026. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy