Ducks General Manager Pat Verbeek spoke to the media Thursday afternoon about this morning's announcement that the Ducks have matched the offer sheet tendered by Philadelphia to Leo Carlsson, who will remain in Anaheim through the 2030-31 season.
First of all, we're extremely excited to have Leo Carlsson under contract for the next five years. Certainly exciting for us. I think the day that we drafted him, we viewed him as a cornerstone piece of our rebuild, and that hasn't changed. Leo and I have a great relationship, and I think that this whole thing has been worked through. My feelings for Leo havn't changed since the day that we drafted him. And so we've got the business at hand taken care of, and now the both of us are looking forward to building off the season that we had last year and towards winning a Stanley Cup.
I know there's probably lots of questions about the process and I want to answer them as best I can, so I'll just kind of lay a little timeline out. Last September, I met with the agents with Leo and Cutter and Jackson LaCombe. I made serious and fair offers at that particular point, as you saw, that I was able to get Jackson LaCombe signed at that particular time. We continued to talk with Leo and Cutter during the season. And when the season ended, I immediately picked up discussions with Matt Keator, who's Leo's agent, and continued to talk all the way until July 1st, and I think it was probably three or four days before July 1st. I felt that I was getting slow-walked to July 1, and from that point I informed ownership that there could be a possible offer sheet coming our way.
And so, as you saw, there was plenty of cap space. We were prepared to accept offer sheets, with all the cap space that we had. So from that particular time, we had to deal with what we were going to have. Now, did we expect the offer sheet to be this high? No. We did not see that one coming, but we're very confident in the sense that, with the cap going up and with the ability of Leo to make great strides of improvement and become an elite player, we feel confident that this contract will be a good one in the end.
On how things got to a point where an offer sheet was signed
Well, I can't speak to what they were thinking. Obviously, being a former player, there's always an excitement to have a chance to determine your destiny, and I think in this particular case, that sort of fits that whole narrative. And listen, this is a CBA right that they have, and at any point I don't begrudge them taking that route.
On the timing of the offer sheet
We spoke the morning of July 2nd. Later that afternoon there was an offer sheet. So we spoke all the way up till July 2nd.
On the negotiations with Cutter Gauthier
Well, the intention is to get Cutter signed. I think that, obviously, wherever Cutter comes in, I'm going to have some work to do to make sure that we can fit everyone in. So I've got two and a half months to figure that out, and we'll go through that process for the rest of the summer.
On how this impacts dealing with restricted free agents in the future
Well, I think the increased cap space has certainly lent to different circumstances, and I think this offer sheet is going to be felt around the rest of the league. So certainly we are going to have to do business in a different type of manner moving forward, and so we will make the adjustments that we have to make to maintain and to keep pushing forward to helping our team win a Stanley Cup.
On waiting six days to match the offer sheet
I think we went through our due diligence, so we have multiple discussions with my inner circle, with ownership, and so you make calls around the rest of the league, you explore things. And obviously the compensation was four first-round picks, so we looked at that closely. And I think as we started to, the more discussions that we had, it became an easier decision, and just it was speaking to us that we need to match the offer sheet.
On the input of ownership
Well, I mean the contract's the contract. We do our contracts in different styles. And so when you're faced with this sort of predicament, you match what's on the offer sheet, and our owner was never in doubt about matching the sheet when it came for the money that was outlaid.
On learning about the offer sheet
Well, it was surprising, to say the least, but I actually feel flattered in a sense that Philadelphia wanted such a great player. It means that we're doing a very good job on our end, and we feel that Leo at some point, and I wouldn't say next year but I think over the course of this contract, is going to show the elite player that he is, and it's going to give us great reasons for why we matched this offer.
On where the team stands right now
I'm very happy. We've got good young defense. I think when I look at our defense, most of them played in the playoffs last year and got good experience there. I mean, the only one that hasn't is Tristan Luneau, who we see as making the team next year, and he's a guy that scored a huge goal for us just to help us make the playoffs. So I feel very confident with our defense. When you look through them, Jackson LaCombe, four-plus years. Mintyukov, four-plus years. Helleson is on his third year, and they're older. It's not like they're 20-year-old kids. They're now 23, with Hinds. So they've got enough pro experience that I feel comfortable with them moving forward, and also with our coaching staff being able to help them exponentially improve over the course of the season.
On Leo Carlsson
Players like Leo don't come along very often. He has elite skill, elite vision, and an ability to be able to ... his speed is also, and he's able to go east-west just as fast as he can north-south. So I think the size is what has played a lot into it. I think Leo is very smart. He's a 200-foot player. And I just think with his ability, he makes players around him much better, and you just don't come across these types of players. And I think at some point, maybe not next year, in the near future, that it's going to prove true.
On Carlsson now being the highest-paid player in the league
I don't anticipate it lasts very long. I think certainly there's a lot of other young stars out there, and there's probably some veterans that are really good players too going to be coming up soon, and that market will change again. So I think as you look at all of this, the cap is going up and there's going to have to be adjustments in the marketplace from everybody, whether that's the managers, whether that's the agents and the players, so there will be adjustments made across the board. And at some point this whole marketplace will settle in, and we'll have a really good idea of what compensation or comparables each player will have moving forward.
On the pressure that comes with that for Carlsson
I think the pressure's going to be more to win versus the money. And I think we all want to win, and I think players will put pressure on themselves to win. Leo wants to win more than anybody, so I think that's the pressure he's going to put on himself or feel. And it won't be any different if he was making a million dollars versus 18 million, from that perspective.
On how these salaries will impact the future of the team
I think that the nice part is we've drafted well, and we have more support coming up underneath from the players that we have currently on our roster. Certainly you're going to have to look for different ways how to build the team and I think that I'm not really too concerned about it, because ultimately you have your core players and you have to build around them. And we will find those players that can kind of fit the contracts and the talent to go with them, so I'm not worried about it at all.
On expectations for Carlsson going forward
The expectations are going to be pushed only because of when you project these young players, you want them to keep taking steps each and every year. And I think from Leo's case, he's been on a nice trajectory. We'd like it to go a little more steeper, take a little bigger jump than the jump that he made from last year. So for me, the expectations aren't needing to go through the roof. We just want him to keep building. I think the most thing for Leo is to keep continuing to put weight on and to keep continuing to get stronger. And within a year or two, I think you're going to start seeing an unreal version of Leo Carlsson.
