Flyers Tender Offer Sheet To Leo Carlsson

The Philadelphia Flyers have tendered Anaheim Ducks centerman Leo Carlsson to a five-year, $90MM offer sheet per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The deal would make Carlsson the highest-paid player in the NHL and require Philadelphia to send four first-round picks to Anaheim, if the Ducks don’t match.

Philadelphia is calling the Ducks’ bluff after Anaheim told teams around the league that they would match any offer sheet tendered to Carlsson. Now, they will have to weigh the value of a deal $4MM richer than Leon Draisaitl‘s league-leading $14MM cap hit. Anaheim has $35MM in available cap space, per PuckPedia, giving them plenty of room to add a new record-setting contract to the fold. The Ducks also need to assemble a new deal for Cutter Gauthier, who is a 10.2(c) restricted free agent and can not be offer-sheeted.

Signing Carlsson to a five-year deal would buy one year of unrestricted free agent eligibility. That’s a valuable contingency, even despite Carlsson’s potential salary topping the league. The 21 year old has shown a clear ability to step up as his team’s top center through three seasons in the league. He finished second on the Ducks in scoring with 67 points through 70 games this season, two points behind Gauthier for Anaheim’s scoring lead. The performance was a major stride forward after Carlsson potted 45 points in 76 games of the 2024-25 season.

Philadelphia’s offer sheet is an interesting bet on Carlsson’s momentum over the last two seasons. The 2023 second-overall pick entered the NHL as a capable play-driver whose skating and mobility held him back. He has honed those abilities under NHL coaching, leading to a climb in his scoring. Even as he grew from 20 goals in 2024-25 to 29 goals this year, Carlsson’s shooting percentage went down, from 17.5 percent last year to a more repeatable 15 percent this season. He also recorded a 44.4 faceoff percentage on 976 draws this year, up from a 41.4 faceoff percentage on 730 draws last year.

The Flyers have found their wingers of the future in Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, Matvei Michkov, Porter Martone, and Trevor Zegras – though Zegras, still an unsiged RFA, was also tapped to fill an important center role through his first season in Philadelphia. Carlsson’s addition would substantially improve the Flyers’ center depth chart, which currently leans on Zegras and Christian Dvorak.

Philadelphia currently wields $29.03MM in projected cap space per PuckPedia. Should Anaheim let Carlsson walk to the Eastern Conference, the Flyers would be left with $11MM to re-sign RFAs Zegras, Jamie Drysdale, and Nikita Grebenkin. That could prove to be too tight of a budget, which may leave pricey contracts like Dvorak, Sean Couturier, or Noah Cates on the chopping block. Philadelphia would move out a significant amount of draft capital if Carlsson’s deal goes through, then may need to spend even more future capital to clear out more cap space. On the other side, Philadelphia could still sit with a lineup capable of driving them through the remaining 2020s.

Anaheim will have one week to match Philadelphia’s offer sheet.

This move harkens back to Philadelphia’s 14-year offer-sheet extended to Nashville Predators’ defenseman Shea Weber in 2012. The Predators matched that offer sheet quickly, committing Weber to a contract that ended on July 1st of this season. The Hall Of Fame defenseman played his final NHL season in 2020-21 and saw his contract bounced around the league in cap-saving trades over the last five years. His deal, formally, concluded in the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks, who sent a fifth-round pick to the Utah Mammoth in exchange for Weber, defenseman Victor Soderstrom, and forward Aku Raty in March, 2025.