Ducks match the Flyers’ offer sheet on Leo Carlsson, star center will remain in Anaheim

The Flyers’ pre-Fourth of July fireworks have officially become a dud.

On July 3, they set off a bombshell, tendering an offer sheet to Anaheim Ducks center Leo Carlsson. It came with a hefty five-year contract worth an average annual value of $18 million. According to a league source, the deal was front-loaded with a heavy signing bonus — and signing bonuses every ensuing year of the deal. Carlsson would receive the league minimum in base salary every year.

That contract is now under control of the Anaheim Ducks, who matched the offer sheet on Thursday, a day before the 3 p.m. Friday deadline. The Ducks cannot trade Carlsson, who now has the highest AAV in the NHL, for one year.

“Matching the offer sheet was an easy decision, as [Anaheim GM] Pat [Verbeek] has intelligently left enough cap space to give us the ability to retain Leo,” Ducks owners Henry and Susan Samueli said in the team press release announcing the move.

“We have extremely high expectations for Leo. We firmly believe he will continue his strong growth trajectory and become one of the truly elite centers in the league, while continuing to make a strong impact in our community.”

Did they leave enough cap space? The Ducks do have to re-sign restricted free agent Cutter Gauthier. But that is Anaheim’s problem now.

Carlsson was the type of top-line center the Flyers have been longing for since Claude Giroux was traded to the Florida Panthers in March 2022. Giroux, who was rumored to be mutually interested in a return to the Flyers, inked a one-year deal to stay with the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday.

The offer sheet was always a long shot, but for a Flyers team that hopes its days at the bottom of the standings are done, it was one of scarce few options. Since 2010, only nine players have signed an offer sheet, and six were matched, including for top-six centers Sebastian Aho and Ryan O’Reilly. The Flyers will now have to pivot elsewhere if they are going to find a potential top-line center solution this offseason.

Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reported that Blue Jackets center Adam Fantilli, the No. 3 overall pick in 2023, could be the Flyers’ next target. Since Columbus is in the division, he would be very difficult to pry away via trade, but could be amenable to an offer sheet.

Fantilli set career highs with 35 assists and 59 points in 2025-26. Across his 213 career games, Fantilli has 140 points (67 goals, 73 assists), but he hasn’t yet lived up to the high expectations of his record NCAA freshman season at Michigan, when he became just the third freshman to win the Hobey Baker Award as the nation’s top player, after Jack Eichel and Paul Kariya. That might make him easier to pry away, but the team runs the risk of giving up four first round picks for a middle-six player.

The Flyers could always make an attempt at the Chicago Blackhawks’ Connor Bedard, but the Blackhawks have nearly $30 million in cap space per PuckPedia and would almost certainly match any offer, assuming Bedard signed it.

Had the Ducks not matched the Carlsson offer sheet, the Flyers would have sent their next four first-round picks to Anaheim in return.

According to PuckPedia, the Flyers have a smidge over $29.5 million in cap space; however, that number includes center Jett Luchanko‘s contract ($941,667), and Flyers general manager Danny Brière told The Inquirer in early June that the expectation is he will be in Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League. They still need to re-sign restricted free agents Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale, who filed for arbitration on Sunday.