For a few tense days, the Flyers had the kind of audacious move that can reshape a division hanging in the balance. They put a massive $90 million offer sheet in front of Leo Carlsson, and for a while there was real concern around the New York Rangers that Philadelphia might land a player who would throw a wrench into the team’s offseason makeover.
That fear ended when Anaheim matched the deal and kept Carlsson.
“The Ducks have matched the Leo Carlsson offer sheet”
- Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) July 9, 2026
The result brought relief in Southern California and frustration on Broad Street. For Rangers fans, though, it also brought back an old memory - one that still stings decades later.
Back in August of 1997, the Rangers tried to pull off their own high-stakes offer-sheet play. Joe Sakic signed a three-year, $21 million deal that would have sent him to Broadway to replace Mark Messier, and the Rangers believed they had built it in a way Colorado simply couldn’t touch. The Avalanche were a financially shaky franchise at the time, having lost $8 million the year before and needing money for a new rink.
The structure was the key. The Rangers thought the $15 million signing bonus up front would make the difference. MSG President Dave Checketts and 1994 Cup architect Neil Smith believed they had found the pressure point.
It didn’t work.
Colorado’s owners got a major cash infusion after the box office success of Air Force One, the Harrison Ford movie, and that changed everything. Ascent Entertainment Group also owned the Avalanche, and the timing of that windfall allowed the team to pay Sakic’s bonus and help build what eventually became Ball Arena in Denver. A documentary that aired on Amazon Prime later revisited the full story.
The Flyers used a similar blueprint with Carlsson. His deal includes a $19,950,000 bonus this year, an $18,100,000 bonus next year, a $15,200,000 bonus the year after, and a $15,000,000 bonus in the final year. Altogether, Carlsson would collect $83.5 million in bonuses, with the rest coming as salary paid during each league year.
Philadelphia clearly designed it to test Anaheim’s business model, not just its cap sheet. The idea was to make the Ducks blink by loading the deal with money that would be hard to swallow, especially for a team that has historically been careful with how it runs things.
That’s the real point here: this wasn’t about whether Anaheim could technically afford it. It was about whether the Ducks, and Henry Samueli specifically, would want to absorb the structure of the contract.
According to Forbes Magazine, the Ducks operating income for 2025-26 was…
The Rangers once made the same kind of bet against Colorado, looking at a team operating at a loss and needing a new arena, and daring it to match. The difference is that Colorado might have actually lost Sakic if not for that late financial break.
Anaheim, meanwhile, has matched the deal and now has to live with it at least for this year. Carlsson can’t be traded for a year, though if the Ducks eventually decide the arrangement isn’t for them, they can always work out a move to a wealthy team that won’t care about the bonus structure.
So the Flyers swung hard for a player who would have changed things for them, and they did it with a clever, aggressive offer sheet that echoed the Rangers’ old Sakic gamble. This time it didn’t land.
Rangers fans know the feeling. Flyers fans do too.
And anyone in the Blueshirts orbit probably isn’t losing much sleep over the disappointment in the cult of Gritty.
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