Carlsson thrilled to have Ducks match offer sheet from Flyers

Leo Carlsson had a contract offer from the Philadelphia Flyers he couldn't say no to and a desire to stay with the Anaheim Ducks.

The 21-year-old forward got everything he wanted Thursday when the Ducks matched the five-year, $90 million offer sheet ($18 million average annual value) Carlsson signed with the Flyers on Friday.

"I always wanted to be a Duck," Carlsson said. "It's home too. So just super excited to be back."

Staying in Anaheim was something Carlsson expressed several times was his first choice. But the life-changing contract presented by Philadelphia, one that made him the highest paid player in the NHL by yearly salary, was impossible for him to pass on.

"It's kind of like an offer that I think ... everybody would sign too," he said. "It changed my family and all that too. So it's a pretty simple answer there. But I always wanted to be here too. I just really hoped they would match."

The decision by the Ducks ended what Carlsson called "probably the weirdest week in my life" while he waited to learn what direction his future would take.

"Trying to not think about it that much, just kind of work out, do stuff, hang out, play golf, hang out with friends, stuff like that," he said from his home in Sweden. "I tried to not think about it too much."

Carlsson said he talked to a few of his Ducks teammates along the way and that the unanimous response was excitement for him.

They only hoped he would play through the contract with them.

"I don't think I had one bad reaction," Carlsson said. "They were all super happy for me, super stoked for me. They just said that I deserve it and (were) super happy for me. And they hoped that I stayed."

He learned he'd be staying only a bit before the news was announced publicly.

"I'm super relieved," Carlsson said. "My mom is relieved too. Obviously she's been stressing for a while now this week too, so it's super nice to get it done. Super happy."

Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek was just as excited to have Carlsson's contract saga concluded.

He said it's the culmination of talks that began in September 2025 and continued through the end of last season. But he said when July 1 came and Carlsson became a restricted free agent, the conversations he had been having with Carlsson's agent led him to believe an offer sheet would be coming.

And it came in a way Friday that shook the hockey world.

"We were prepared to accept offer sheets with all the (NHL salary) cap space that we had," Verbeek said. "So from that particular time, we had to deal with what we were going to have. Did we expect the offer sheet to be this high? No, we did not see that that one coming."

Verbeek had said prior to Carlsson receiving the offer sheet that the Ducks would match any contract he received. But the decision to get there did involve long conversations at multiple levels of the organization.

"We went through our due diligence," Verbeek said. "We had multiple discussions with my inner circle, with ownership, you make calls around the rest of the League, you explore things. Obviously the compensation was four first-round picks, so we looked at that closely. ... The more discussions that we had, it became an easier decision. It was speaking to us that we need to match the offer sheet."

Carlsson, selected by Anaheim with the No. 2 pick of the 2023 NHL Draft, is the linchpin for a Ducks team that reached the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season for the first time since 2018. He was second on the team during the regular season with 67 points (29 goals, 38 assists) in 70 games, behind forward Cutter Gauthier (69 points), and tied with forward Troy Terry for second during the postseason with 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in 12 games.

Carlsson is Anaheim's No. 1 center, an offensive threat with his elite playmaking and speed who has developed into a 200-foot presence that coach Joel Quenneville can feel comfortable matching against the opposition's top lines.

"I think from the day that we drafted him, we viewed him as a cornerstone piece of our rebuild, and that hasn't changed," Verbeek said. 

"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."

Carlsson said he doesn't feel any extra pressure coming with his new paycheck. He understands there are consistency issues in his game he needs to smooth out, and Verbeek said the team would like to see him add more muscle to his 6-foot-3, 208-pound frame.

"I've had this pressure since the draft as well," Carlsson said. "I'm still going to be the same person. One thing I can do is just going out there and playing my way.

"I'm going to grow as a player too. I've done that every year so far. Trying to get away from these slumps that I'm having in seasons, trying to stay at the highest level I can be all year round. It's going to be hard, but that's my goal too."