NHL salary history is being made in Anaheim, as the Ducks have matched the five-year, $90 million offer sheet extended by the Flyers for center Leo Carlsson.
With a day remaining before the 3 p.m. ET Friday deadline, the Ducks elected to match the Flyers’ offer and will retain Carlsson at the record-setting price. The average annual value of $18 million sets a new NHL milestone, beating the $17 million AAV in the eight-year, $136 million contract for Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov.
Unlike Kaprizov, however, the 21-year-old Carlsson is not yet an established star. Still, Carlsson is widely thought to be entering his professional prime, and the decision to match the Flyers’ offer is a bet by Anaheim on his continued ascendancy.
The second pick in the 2023 NHL draft, Carlsson entered this offseason as a restricted free agent. The deal is also frontloaded and based heavily on signing bonuses. As a result, Carlsson’s cash compensation for the 2026–27 season will be nearly $20 million. By comparison, Carlsson just finished an entry-level contract that had a salary cap hit of $950,000 last season.
The Ducks, however, still have about $9 million in available salary cap space for the forthcoming season, even with the retention of Carlsson—aided in part by the rise of the 2026–27 NHL cap to a record $104 million. The Carlsson deal runs through the 2030–31 season, and is now expected to help fuel a salary acceleration for other emerging players, such as the Sharks’ Macklin Celebrini and the Blackhawks’ Connor Bedard.
