{"id":851843,"date":"2026-09-18T07:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T07:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851843\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T07:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T07:08:10","slug":"ryan-leonard-has-a-special-thank-you-planned-for-leo-carlsson-after-84-million-payday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851843\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Leonard has a special thank you planned for Leo Carlsson after $84 million payday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leo Carlsson<\/a> dramatically reset the market for young stars earlier this summer when he signed a five-year, $90 million offer sheet with the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a>. The Anaheim Ducks<\/a> ultimately matched the deal, giving the 21-year-old center a then-NHL-record $18 million cap hit<\/a> and, in the process, helping push the price of comparable young players even higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nuts,\u201d Leonard said to reporters after the first day of Capitals training camp. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy what\u2019s going on now.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the new CBA capping contract extensions at seven years and fears of more offer sheets coming to prominent restricted free agents next summer, Capitals general manager Chris Patrick made Ryan Leonard<\/a> one of the beneficiaries of that changing landscape, agreeing to an eight-year, $84 million contract worth $10.5 million per season at Tuesday\u2019s deadline. The deal, which begins in the 2027-28 season, will keep Leonard in Washington through 2034-35.<\/p>\n

Making such a huge commitment to the Capitals was easy, explained Leonard, even beyond the eye-popping numbers, which got him pranked at Tuesday\u2019s informal skate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it here,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cMy family loves coming out here, and they just know how happy I am here. Couldn\u2019t thank the organization enough for putting that trust in me, and it\u2019s really exciting to lock in pretty much nine more years here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard likely netted millions \u2014 if not tens of millions more \u2014 due to Carlsson\u2019s market-resetting deal. Other players to benefit this summer included Macklin Celebrini<\/a> ($18.8M AAV), Connor Bedard<\/a> ($15M AAV), and Cutter Gauthier<\/a> ($13.5M AAV), all pending restricted free agents who signed extensions worth over eight figures.<\/p>\n

When asked if he would send Carlsson a thank-you card, the Capitals winger had a more subtle surprise planned. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll definitely be giving him a tap on the shins this year,\u201d he said, smiling.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Leonard will have to wait to thank Carlsson in person, as the Capitals\u2019 first game against the Ducks comes in the next calendar year on January 10 at Honda Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun to see the market, and it\u2019s nice to see that the NHL is slowly creeping up on some other sports (salaries),\u201d Leonard said.<\/p>\n

For his part, Patrick admitted that he was surprised by what went down with Carlsson, but not the offer sheet itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the numbers involved with it,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cDoes it change the marketplace? We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrick thinks the current environment has become ripe for offer sheets because of the NHL\u2019s rising salary cap and thin UFA market, though he believes that window could close in the next year or two as teams spend their cap space and burn through the draft picks needed as compensation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that our exposure has gone there with those two players,\u201d Patrick said, also referencing Justin Sourdif<\/a>\u2018s eight-year extension on Tuesday as well. \u201cFor me, I wasn\u2019t worried about losing them. I was worried about having to match a deal with a term we didn\u2019t like or with movement clauses we didn\u2019t like or with massively front-loaded bonus structure that we didn\u2019t like. So we were able to do a deal on our terms with the player and kind of avoid a lot of that drama.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also believes the megadeals across the NHL for young stars are not done quite yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some more deals that are going to come in here besides the ones like the flurry over the last couple of days,\u201d Patrick said. \u201c(Adam) Fantilli and some guys in Ryan\u2019s draft class that are going to be up for deals after this year as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fantilli, the talented Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>\u2018 centerman, is a restricted free agent this summer along with Leonard\u2019s former Boston College line-mate, Sharks forward Will Smith<\/a>, and Matvei Michkov<\/a> \u2014 the talented Russian winger picked one spot ahead of Leonard in the 2023 NHL Draft by the Flyers.<\/p>\n

As for Leonard, who was placed on a line with Alex Ovechkin<\/a> and Dylan Strome<\/a> to start training camp, he still seemed amazed at the position he\u2019s been put in at age 21.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you hear that a team in an organization has a trust in you like that, it\u2019s kind of hard not to turn it down,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cAnd, yeah, it\u2019s just super rewarding to hear that they have that trust in you. Obviously you just want to get it done as quickly as possible. It was really nice to get it done and (I\u2019m) super happy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leo Carlsson dramatically reset the market for young stars earlier this summer when he signed a five-year, $90…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-851843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}