“As you saw, there was plenty of cap space. We were prepared to accept offer sheets with all the cap space that we had. From that particular time, we had to deal with what we were going to have,” Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said in his opening statement during Thursday’s press conference. “Now, did we expect the offer sheet to be this high? No. We did not see that one coming, but we’re very confident in the sense that with the cap going up and with the ability of Leo to make great strides of improvement and become an elite player, we feel confident that this contract will be a good one in the end.”
