BREAKING: Flyers Sign Leo Carlsson to Offer Sheet Worth $18M AAV

The Philadelphia Flyers have done it. The team has signed Anaheim Ducks restricted free agent Leo Carlsson to an offer sheet worth $18 million annually over five years, with the Flyers themselves confirming the move. Word is the deal is heavily front-loaded, a structure designed to maximize pressure on Anaheim’s cap sheet in the earliest years of the contract.

We have tendered an offer sheet to Anaheim center Leo Carlsson. The offer is a five-year contract worth an average annual value (AAV) of $18M, which would require four of the Flyers first-round draft picks in each of the next four seasons as compensation. https://t.co/nfhD4h6nEc

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 3, 2026

Philadelphia Flyers general manager Daniel Briere has issued the following statement:
 
“The Philadelphia Flyers have tendered an offer sheet to Anaheim Ducks center Leo Carlsson. The offer is a five-year contract worth an average annual value (AAV) of $18M, which would require four of the Flyers first-round draft picks in each of the next four seasons as compensation.”

Anaheim now has seven days to decide whether to match. If the Ducks decline, Philadelphia would send four first-round picks to Anaheim as compensation — the NHL’s maximum offer-sheet compensation tier, triggered by any AAV north of roughly $11.9 million.

The move comes despite Anaheim GM Pat Verbeek publicly stating just a day earlier that the Ducks were prepared to match any offer sheet thrown at Carlsson, according to Elliotte Friedman. Friedman had reported that Anaheim stayed quiet through the early days of free agency specifically to preserve the cap space needed to match exactly this kind of offer. One has to wonder if this was the kind of offer Verbeek was expecting.

Carlsson, 21, is coming off the best season of his young career — 29 goals and 38 assists in 70 games, cementing himself as the top-line center Anaheim hoped for when it took him second overall in 2023. He’s already amassed 61 goals and 141 points in 201 career NHL games, drawing comparisons to Nicklas Backstrom and Peter Forsberg for his size, vision and puck protection.

For Philadelphia, this is the aggressive center swing the organization has been rumored to be considering for weeks, with Carlsson long seen as the marquee name on their offer-sheet radar.

The next seven days now belong to Anaheim. Given Verbeek’s public guarantee to match, the expectation across the league is that Carlsson stays a Duck — but a front-loaded $18 million annual commitment is a real number to absorb, and it will be worth watching whether the term of Verbeek’s promise holds up against the size of this actual offer.

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