Well, the offer sheet hype was fun while it lasted. Both offer sheets tendered have now been matched by the original team.

On Thursday morning, the Anaheim Ducks announced that they have matched the Philadelphia Flyers’ offer sheet for Leo Carlsson. He will remain in Southern California for the next five seasons at what is, at the time of this writing, the highest average annual value in the NHL at $18 million. Anaheim would have received Philadelphia’s next four first-round picks if they had accepted the compensation.

In the press release announcing the signing, Ducks owner Henry and Susan Samueli released a statement:

“Matching the offer sheet was an easy decision, as Pat has intelligently left enough cap space to give us the ability to retain Leo,” said the Samuelis. “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.”

As well as Ducks General Manager Pat Verbeek:

“We are very happy to have Leo under contract for five years,” said Verbeek. “We have viewed Leo as a franchise player since the moment we met him prior to the 2023 draft. He’s a character person on and off the ice. Leo is viewed as a top player in this league, and it was always our intention to match any offer sheet.”

Carlsson, 21, was drafted second overall by the Ducks in 2023. The 6’3″ centreman is coming off a career year where he scored 29 goals and 38 assists for 67 points in 70 games.

With Carlsson’s $18 million AAV now on the books, the Ducks have a hair over $9 million in available cap space remaining, with 40-goal scorer Cutter Gauthier still to extend. Names such as Alex Killorn and Frank Vatrano, who are making $6.25 million and $4.57 million in AAV, respectively, have come up as possible trade candidates to clear cap space. However, teams around the NHL will now know the Ducks’ desperation to clear salary cap space, and will likely ask for a significant sweetener to take on that money.

On the back end, the Ducks are hurting. From the team that took them to the second round of the playoffs last season, Anaheim lost John Carlson, Radko Gudas, Jacob Trouba, and Olen Zellweger this offseason, only bringing in Nick Jensen. This leaves them with Jackson LaCombe, Pavel Mintyukov, Jensen, Ian Moore, Drew Helleson, Tyson Hinds, and Tristan Luneau as their seven defencemen.

The Flyers lose out on finding their 1C of the future with this move. However, they have a pair of RFAs, Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale, who filed for salary arbitration. If they want to stay aggressive and target another RFA centre, Connor Bedard (20) and Adam Fantilli (21) did not file for arbitration and can sign offer sheets. We will see how the Flyers choose to use their $29.5 million in cap space the rest of the summer.