Leo Carlsson offer sheet winners and losers after the Ducks match massive contract
· Yahoo Sports
The week-long Leo Carlsson saga is officially over and the 21-year-old center remains in Anaheim.
On Thursday, the Ducks announced that they matched the Philadelphia Flyers' gargantuan five-year, $90 million offer sheet tendered then accepted by Carlsson late last week. The deal makes Carlsson the highest-paid player in the NHL by average annual value, coming in at a whopping $18 million per season.
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Despite all the talk and rumors, this was the expected result from the Ducks. Even with their difficult salary cap situation, the Ducks could not just let their top center walk away for four first-round picks. In the end, Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek did ultimately match any offer thrown Carlsson's way, but it certainly does throw a wrench in Anaheim's roster construction plans going forward.
Now that the dust has settled on this offer sheet craziness, let's see who the biggest winners and losers are from the Ducks matching Carlsson's massive contract extension.
Winner: Anaheim Ducks
At the end of the day, the Ducks had to match Carlsson's offer sheet. Carlsson is a legit No. 1 center talent and those are hard to find (ask Danny Briere about it), so the Ducks keeping Carlsson makes them an automatic winner here. With this move, Carlsson sticks around for at least a year — because matching the offer sheet means they cannot trade him for a calendar year — and the Ducks keep their young offensive core together.
Winner: Danny Briere
We'll get into the Flyers a bit more later, but Briere did all he could here. Carlsson would have solved their center depth issues but making the swing for him was absolutely huge, even if it didn't work out. The Flyers missed on Carlsson sure, but this move signals to Flyers fans and other teams across the league that Briere is willing to make a big splash, no matter the cost.
Winner: Offer sheet enjoyers
Offer sheets are severely underutilized in the NHL, so this past week has been quite the enjoyable one. Even though the Ducks ultimately matched here, it's nice to see offer sheets get more play across the league. Hopefully with the rising cap, we'll see even more of them going forward.
Loser: Pat Verbeek and the Ducks' front office
Verbeek is the reason why the Ducks were in this position in the first place. Carlsson does stay a Duck at the end of all of this, but he should have been locked up a year ago instead of becoming a RFA, which allowed him to be tendered an offer sheet. While the Ducks keeping Carlsson is a good thing, Verbeek and the rest of the front office now have their work cut out for them for the rest of their roster. Given the Ducks lost a lot of defensive depth this offseason, the likelihood that they'll be able to bolster that back up given the work they still have left to do is ... slim.
Loser: Cutter Gauthier for now
As of Thursday afternoon, the Ducks have just over $9 million to give to Gauthier on his upcoming contract extension. Given that he was the Ducks' leading scorer last season, he has all the right in the world to ask for $12-plus million in negotiations now that Carlsson has set the market for young, talented RFAs. However, as of now, the Ducks don't have that kind of money to give Gauthier, so either the young forward takes a steep pay cut to stay in line or other moves have to be made here.
Loser: Frank Vatrano, Alex Killorn, and/or Chris Kreider
Speaking of those other moves, one or more of Vatrano, Killorn or Kreider will likely be shipped out of Anaheim to make the money work for Gauthier's contract extension. If you're a Ducks fan, don't expect much in return for any of these veterans, as Anaheim is now dealing from a position of weakness to remove necessary salary and it's unlikely the rest of the league will give them an easy win here.
Loser: Philadelphia Flyers
Briere's gambit didn't pay off and the Flyers are still without a No. 1 center option going forward. It's a rough blow for Philadelphia, who also lost out on bringing back former captain Claude Giroux in the midst of all of this. Now, the Flyers will have to turn to other options (Adam Fantilli?) who aren't as good as Carlsson to fill that top center need. Given how hard those are to find, it's likely going to be an uphill battle.
Loser: Fans of chaos
Sadly, the ultimate sickos ending did not occur and fans of chaos will have to wait another day for an offer sheet of this magnitude to actually work.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Leo Carlsson offer sheet winners and losers after the Ducks match massive contract