{"id":392542,"date":"2026-07-09T21:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392542\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T21:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:24:10","slug":"anaheim-ducks-keep-leo-carlsson-matching-flyers-90-million-offer-sheet-for-young-center-fraser-valley-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392542\/","title":{"rendered":"Anaheim Ducks keep Leo Carlsson, matching Flyers\u2019 $90 million offer sheet for young center | Fraser Valley Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlsson\u2019s new contract is worth much more than the league expected the Swedish youngster would get as a restricted free agent, and the $18 million average annual value is significantly more than he had already indicated he would accept. The deal surpasses the salary of Minnesota\u2019s Kirill Kaprizov<\/a>, who would have been the NHL\u2019s highest-paid player at $17 million.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Verbeek acknowledged he was shocked by the Flyers\u2019 aggressiveness, and he admitted the entire experience could change the way he conducts business.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid we expect the offer sheet to be this high? No. We did not see that one coming,\u201d Verbeek said. \u201cBut we\u2019re very confident in the sense that with the cap going up and 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlsson\u2019s first significant contract negotiations landed him a record payday \u2014 and he might have affected the NHL\u2019s entire salary structure going forward with this new benchmark for young talent amid a rising salary cap. Carlsson emerged from the experience with excitement and no hard feelings toward Anaheim about the way everything went down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of business in hockey,\u201d Carlsson said. \u201cI knew it, obviously, but it\u2019s more business than I thought. (The details are) something for my agent to answer more on, but (the offer sheet) was just too good to pass on. I think everybody understands that. I talked to my teammates a lot, and everybody was just happy for me and super-supportive with the decision I made.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Flyers failed to land their long-sought No. 1 center by swiping Carlsson, but the attempt showed general manager Danny Briere\u2019s determination to improve his roster at all costs. The Ducks would have received four first-round draft picks from Philadelphia if they hadn\u2019t matched.<\/p>\n

Future negotiations will reveal whether Briere forever altered the hockey talent market. The structure of Philadelphia\u2019s offer sheet also front-loaded Carlsson\u2019s contract with enormous signing bonuses in another departure from most NHL contracts.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for the Ducks, billionaire owner Henry Samueli eagerly made that hefty financial commitment, calling it \u201can easy decision\u201d in a statement issued by the team.<\/p>\n

Still, that decision wouldn\u2019t have been necessary if Verbeek had done a deal at any point in the previous year. The general manager claimed he made \u201cserious and fair\u201d offers last September to young cornerstones Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and defenseman Jackson LaCombe<\/a>, who took an eight-year, $72 million deal.<\/p>\n

Verbeek continued negotiations with Carlsson\u2019s agent this spring, but felt he was \u201cgetting slow-walked to July 1,\u201d when the offer sheet could be signed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was surprising, to say the least,\u201d Verbeek said. \u201cI actually feel flattered in a sense that Philadelphia wanted such a great player. It means we\u2019re doing a good job on our end. \u2026 Players like Leo don\u2019t come along very often.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the Ducks retained their most important young player, Verbeek\u2019s inability to get a deal done before he was forced into it by Philadelphia seems almost certain to compromise Anaheim\u2019s roster-building efforts for years to come. The Ducks are having a rough summer after ending their seven-season playoff drought<\/a> with a second-round run<\/a> that stamped them as a future contender.<\/p>\n

Along with losing four veteran defensemen and hoping to replace them from within, Verbeek still hasn\u2019t re-signed 41-goal scorer Gauthier, who isn\u2019t eligible to receive an offer sheet. Anaheim signed Pavel Mintyukov<\/a> to a five-year, $36 million deal last week, again going well over the expected market rate for a defenseman who isn\u2019t on Carlsson\u2019s level of talent, but was widely rumored to be on the verge of signing an offer sheet.<\/p>\n

This pricey deal for Carlsson is the latest chapter in Verbeek\u2019s history of antagonistic negotiations with Anaheim\u2019s free agents. Trevor Zegras, Jamie Drysdale and Mason McTavish all held out of training camp in recent years when they couldn\u2019t get a deal done with Verbeek, who eventually traded all three.<\/p>\n

Verbeek said he has \u201c2 1\/2 months to figure out\u201d how to fit Gauthier under the cap, possibly by dumping a veteran\u2019s salary.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly we are going to have to do business in a different type of manner moving forward, and so we will make the adjustments that we have to make,\u201d Verbeek said.<\/p>\n

Carlsson was the No. 2 choice in the 2023 draft behind Connor Bedard, and he has emerged as one of the NHL\u2019s top young playmakers. Although he didn\u2019t produce points at a rate commensurate with his new salary during his first three seasons, almost everyone believes Carlsson can become one of the best centers in hockey, so Verbeek might be correct that this deal will eventually look reasonable on paper.<\/p>\n

Carlsson scored 67 points in 70 games last season despite being limited for a lengthy stretch by a leg injury that kept him out of the Olympics. He added 11 points in 12 games during his first postseason experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to grow as a player, too,\u201d Carlsson said. \u201cI\u2019ve done that every year so far. Trying to get away from these slumps I\u2019ve been having during seasons. Trying to stay at the highest level I can all season long.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n

Greg Beacham, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlsson\u2019s new contract is worth much more than the league expected the Swedish youngster would get as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,142958],"class_list":["post-392542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-chilliwack-news-fraser-valley-abbotsford-weather-traffic-lower-mainland-fvt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}