The Flyers put a gun on the table and the Ducks paid the ransom. Five years, $90 million, $18 million a year. Leo Carlsson is the highest-paid player in NHL history, and he is still 21 years old with three NHL seasons under his belt.
Philadelphia did not bluff. They ran the number so high that four first-round picks looked almost reasonable as compensation. Anaheim still matched on July 9. Of course they matched. You do not draft a kid second overall in 2023, ride him through a rebuild that finally cracked the playoffs last spring, and then hand him to Philadelphia because the sticker made you blink.
Carlsson knew exactly what he was doing. “It was kind of an offer that I think everyone would sign,” he said. “When you see that number, it’s hard to say no.” He is right. Almost $85 million of it is signing-bonus money. Year one cash alone sits near $21 million. His mom can finally sleep. His agent can retire early. And the Ducks just chained their entire ceiling to a center who has 67 points in 70 games and a faceoff percentage that still needs work.
The Crown Is Heavy and the Cap Is Rising
I love the swagger of it. I also know what the list looks like under him. Kaprizov is at $17 million. Draisaitl is at $14. Eichel, Matthews, MacKinnon, McDavid all sit lower on AAV right now. Those guys have Harts, Cups, Rocket Richards, or all three. Carlsson has a second-round exit against Vegas and a five-on-five expected-goals share that finally climbed above water.
He is not ducking the weight. “It’s going to be a special feeling, having this pressure,” Carlsson said. “I always wanted to be a Duck. It’s my home, too. I’m just super excited to be back.” That is the right answer. It is also the only answer that does not get you laughed out of the room when you are making more than every established superstar on the board.
The rising salary cap will sand some of the edges off this deal. McDavid and Matthews will reset the market again in a couple of years and suddenly $18 million will look like a temporary throne. Until then, every empty-net miss and every soft defensive shift is going to carry a price tag attached. Franchise players eat that. Role players fold under it. The Ducks are betting Carlsson is the first kind.
Pat Verbeek never pretended he saw this coming. “Did we expect the offer sheet to be this high? No. We did not see that one coming,” the GM said. “It was surprising, to say the least.” Then he said the line that actually matters: “Players like Leo don’t come along very often.” That is the whole argument. You either believe the 6-foot-3 Swedish kid who just led the team in points per game is the centerpiece of a Cup window, or you collect four Flyers firsts and start over. Verbeek chose the window.
Verbeek Bought the Star and Inherited the Mess
Matching Carlsson was the easy part. The hard part is everything else. Anaheim locked Pavel Mintyukov into five years and $36 million right after the offer sheet landed, a clear panic move to stop another team from copying Philadelphia’s homework. Mintyukov can skate and move the puck. He also has real defensive holes. That contract is a gamble dressed up as stability.
Now the Ducks are staring at roughly $9 million in cap space and Cutter Gauthier still unsigned. The kid just scored 41 goals. His next deal is walking in north of $10 million a year, and the blue line still does not have six true NHL defensemen. Verbeek has the franchise player signed through 2030-31. He does not have a finished roster around him.
I am not mad at the match. I would have matched it in five minutes. You do not let a No. 1 center this young walk for draft capital when you just tasted the playoffs for the first time since 2018. What I am watching is the next six weeks. If Gauthier gets paid and the defense gets patched without gutting the depth, this looks like a bold franchise turn. If the books force a trade and the supporting cast thins out, Carlsson becomes the $18 million island in a half-built pond.
The Flyers forced the issue and lost the player. The Ducks kept their cornerstone and inherited a tighter salary squeeze than they wanted. Carlsson gets the biggest number in the league and the pressure that comes with it. Everybody got what they asked for. Only one of them has to live with the bill for five years.
