The Anaheim Ducks turned Leo Carlsson into an $18 million problem on Wednesday, and that decision sent ripples far beyond Orange County.
After the Philadelphia Flyers signed Carlsson to a five-year, $18 million AAV offer sheet, Anaheim chose to match it, keeping the young center in place on the same terms. Elliotte Friedman reported the move simply: “The Ducks have matched the Leo Carlsson offer sheet”
That leaves the Ducks staring at the hard part now. Matching the deal was the easy headline.
Making the rest of the roster work around it is where the real headache begins. Anaheim now has to figure out how to carve out enough room to build out the lineup, with names like Frank Vatrano, Chris Kreider, Alex Killorn, and Mikael Granlund suddenly part of the conversation.
The club is said to have roughly $9 million in salary cap space, and even that number doesn’t make the math feel any cleaner when Cutter Gauthier also needs to be accounted for. The Ducks have also put themselves squarely in the crosshairs of offer-sheet danger, with teams like the Flyers waiting for openings.
For the Vegas Golden Knights, though, this kind of mess is exactly what they try to avoid.
Vegas never let itself get trapped in a Carlsson-style bidding war. General manager Kelly McCrimmon moved on from Pavel Dorofeyev’s potential contract because the price got too rich, and the team also traded Akira Schmid and watched him go to arbitration. Those are smaller examples than Carlsson, but the philosophy is the same: don’t pay premium money for a player until he’s earned it.
That approach looks even sharper when compared with the San Jose Sharks, who now have their own looming cap puzzle. Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith are both restricted free agents next season and are expected to command serious money, with Celebrini likely to cost more than Carlsson. Add in the roughly $52 million in salary cap space, plus Yaroslav Askarov becoming a restricted free agent next season and arbitration-eligible, and the Sharks are looking at a future that could get messy fast.
Vegas, meanwhile, has already stripped out some of the heavier contracts, including Keegan Kolesar’s, which only opens more room for the future. That flexibility could put the Golden Knights in position to chase another major name on the trade market, which is exactly the sort of move that keeps the rest of the league on edge.
The Oilers are in a better spot than Anaheim, too, at least for now. Leon Draisaitl’s $14 million AAV deal is looking like solid value, and Connor McDavid’s loyalty gives Edmonton more breathing room in the short term.
But the pressure isn’t gone. Once the summer of 2028 arrives, the question of what McDavid is worth will be unavoidable, and the answer will ripple through the rest of the roster.
Stan Bowman will have to manage that balance, just as the Ducks now have to manage theirs.
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Mark Stone still looms as the most complicated case, with William Karlsson continuing to matter in ways that go beyond scoring and Nic Dowd fitting the kind of dependable, low-drama role teams hate to replace. Braeden Bowman adds a different wrinkle after a promising first full look, and his production has only sharpened the sense that Vegas may already have part of its next core in house if it handles the summer correctly. [Read more 🡒]