The Philadelphia Flyers rattled the entire hockey world earlier this summer. By sending Leo Carlsson a historic, $90-million offer sheet, they picked up the millions of players and coaches and other people involved in the game and threw their head around to give them images of what a new NHL could look like.
It was an exciting six days before the Anaheim Ducks eventually matched the offer sheet and kept their 21-year-old star center, but it certainly was a sign that the Flyers are trying to make a massive splash and make them a consistent playoff threat. A bold move that deserved to be celebrated. But it wasn’t just us who were waiting with extreme impatience to find out whether or not the Ducks were going to match and whether or not the Flyers would suddenly get one of the top young players in the NHL on their roster.
Flyers center Trevor Zegras recently got the chance to talk briefly about his reaction to the Carlsson offer sheet and everything that came with it.
Trevor Zegras reflects on Flyers almost getting Leo Carlsson
Zegras appeared on Tuesday’s episode of OverDrive on TSN 1050 up in Toronto, and when the topic of the offer sheet came up, he really just got all giddy and appeared more like one of us rather than someone who could actually be playing beneath him in the depth chart and on the top power-play unit with him.
“Oh man. Yeah, that was crazy,” Zegras said about the Carlsson offer sheet. “We had no idea. But, I mean, having played with Leo, I understand why they wanted to do that. Hell of a player and it was cool that we almost got him.”
Could you just imagine the reaction from various Flyers players as soon as they got word of the offer sheet? How insane that groupchat must have been? Whether it was because they could maybe call Carlsson a teammate very soon, or seeing that $18-million AAV and knowing that they are about to get paid a whole lot more than they previously thought, it must have been a wild couple of hours.
But as Zegras mentioned, he already got to call Carlsson a teammate.
During the two seasons that Zegras was in Anaheim after Carlsson joined the team in 2023, they spent a total of 477 minutes and 22 seconds on the ice together in all situations — only two other skaters in Mason McTavish and Alex Killorn had higher shared ice-time with Zegras during that time. That’s a lot of getting to know the player — and they could have been reunited in Philadelphia.
Oh well.
Zegras on his first season in Philadelphia
In the radio hit, Zegras was also able to touch on how his first season with the Flyers went. Since he did go from a distressed asset in Anaheim, looking for a new home, to a player who has found his second home in the NHL and just had the best season of his career — and he’s still just 25 years old.
“It was fantastic. Great group of guys. Great coaching staff. Made it a lot of fun to go to work every day, that’s for sure,” Zegras said.
More specifically, how did Zegras find being coached by Rick Tocchet?
It’s not like he would say anything inflammatory about his head coach on Toronto radio, or even have any negative opinion after he just got to the playoffs with him behind the bench, but it is interesting what Zegras had to say about his boss.
“He’s an easy guy to follow because he was such a good player himself and he kind of came in, at least in my eyes, with that respect factor. You just do the things that he wanted and we were winning games,” he said.
It’s never explicitly said just how a coach’s playing career career can possibly shape the opinion of his players, but there is clearly something there. With Tocchet being such a good NHL talent in his playing days, maybe there is just a little bit more seriousness and respect that some players who could normally question coaches, have in the end. Some more trust in what they are saying can actually contribute to success.
And, it certainly helped the Flyers win a whole lot more games than anyone expected.
Notably, Zegras also had some familiar faces in the Flyers locker room when he joined the team over a year ago. He attributes that to being immediately comfortable and growing into his larger role on the team.
“I was lucky. I knew a couple of the guys before going there and it’s always cool when you play on an NHL team with like; [Cam York] is one of my best buddies of all time. So, it definitely made it pretty easy.”
Well now that Zegras has signed his four-year contract with the Flyers, he will get to play next to his best buddies of all time for all four years. Hopefully, they also get some more playoff moments, too.
