The Philadelphia Flyers sent shockwaves through the NHL on Friday afternoon when they announced that they signed Anaheim Ducks restricted free agent Leo Carlsson to a five-year offer sheet.
The contract will pay Carlsson $18 million per season and make him the highest-paid player in the league on a per-year basis.
It is now just a matter of which team will be paying it to him.
The Ducks have seven days to match the offer.
If they do not, they will receive the Flyers’ next four first-round draft picks.
Whether it works for the Flyers or not, it is one of the boldest moves the NHL has seen in years. It is also a worthy gamble.
Why the Flyers’ offer sheet for Leo Carlsson is so bold
First, offer sheets are not something NHL teams typically utilize.
Especially not for top players.
You still have to find a player that wants to sign with your team, you have to be willing to give up the draft pick compensation that comes with a successful offer sheet, and the team that currently owns the player’s rights has to be in a position where it does not want to match it.
That is a lot of things that have to go right, and all of them rarely do.
There was also always a good-old-boys club element to this, where general managers did not want to rock the boat or leave themselves vulnerable to an offer sheet of their own in the future.
Slowly but surely, that mindset is starting to change. We saw successful offer sheets a couple of years ago when the St. Louis Blues successfully poached forward Dylan Holloway and defenseman Philip Broberg away from the Edmonton Oilers.
Those contracts started to get the ball rolling.
This contract will significantly help it along.