The Philadelphia Flyers lit off some fireworks early on Friday afternoon with Danny Briere tendering a massive five-year, $90 million offer sheet to Leo Carlsson.
The Anaheim Ducks are now in the middle of the seven days they have to match the contract, weighing their options with their own players, the salary cap, and what they could do with the four first-round picks they’d get in compensation if they let the top-line center walk.
The Ducks were threatened with another offer sheet over the weekend, which likely resulted in them overpaying restricted free agent Pavel Mintyukov. They signed the defenseman to a five-year contract with an average annual value of $7.2 million, having a direct impact on the Flyers and the Carlsson offer sheet.
The initial reaction to the Carlsson offer sheet was that the team would match, which is the knee-jerk reaction to most of these moves, but things may be changing as the clock ticks down.
Someone thinks Leo Carlsson will be in Philadelphia
Jeff Marek shared his thoughts on what the Ducks will do on Monday’s episode of DFO Rundown.
“I’ve had a bunch of people today say that this changes the calibration for them. Because all weekend long, the hue and cry was ‘It’s a bitter pill to swallow for Anaheim, and it goes down sideways, and it’s a tough one, but they have to match,'” he said. “But now, when you look at what Mintyukov is making and the cascading effect to Cutter Gauthier, maybe they don’t.
“Maybe they just say, ‘We’ll take the first four-rounders and try to turn them into something else.’ I’ve been of the ‘they’re going to match’ mind until I saw the Mintyukov deal. Now I’m not so sure.”
Mintyukov’s $7.2 million cap hit leaves the Ducks with just $12.7 million in cap space if they are to match the Carlsson offer sheet. They still have another young gun to pay in Gauthier, as Marek mentioned.
“When it comes to Cutter Gauthier now, I think it’s safe to say that he’s worth more than $9 million. 41 goals, led the team in scoring, incredible season, and they invested a lot to get him in the first place.
“If you’re Pat Verbeek now, given the reality of your salary cap, you probably just want to get him on a one-year deal and then your calibration will change as money will come off the books next summer. But isn’t this what got you in that spot in the first place? Grinding young guys. We come back to the how did this relationship get to the point where Leo Carlsson is saying, ‘I’ll take that offer sheet. Yeah, I’m interested in that. Yeah, thank you very much.'”
Verbeek’s modus operandi has been playing hardball with his players, particularly his young stars. We saw that with current Flyers Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale, as well as Mason McTavish, who the Ducks shipped to St. Louis earlier this offseason.
That has directly led to Carlsson looking elsewhere, with the young center choosing the Flyers over a few other offer sheets on the table.
“The problem is when you do use that too many times, the one thing you don’t get is loyalty. That’s the situation that Verbeek finds himself in now is does he go back to the same ‘I’m going to grind this guy on a one-year deal’ well?” Marek continued. “Because if he does, you can be pretty sure that Cutter Gauthier will go offer sheet shopping next summer. I think that’s pretty safe to say.”
Gauthier has already shown that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants, although he has yet to explain exactly why he didn’t want to play for the Flyers. You can be sure that he and his agent are closely following whatever happens with the Carlsson offer sheet this week.
Keith Jones famously said, “If you don’t want to be a Flyer, you’re not going to be a Flyer,” after trading Gauthier in January of 2024.
Marek thinks that Verbeek will ultimately use that same logic when it comes to the Carlsson offer sheet.
As the segment on the Carlsson offer sheet came to a close, the insider was pressed for his final answer — at least for now.
“Oh boy, I’ll give you an answer, and then my answer will change in five minutes. All this weekend I said ‘they’re going to match.’ Now, I don’t think they match,” Marek concluded. “I think they take the picks and try to turn it into something else. And the reason they give is ‘we want players who want to be here.’ That’ll be their saving grace on this. ‘We want guys that want to be here.'”
