PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Leo Carlsson came within one financial decision of becoming a Philadelphia Flyer last summer. On Saturday, the Anaheim center found a way to beat the team that tried to pry him away from the Ducks.
Carlsson scored and assisted on the game-winner as the Ducks snapped a five-game losing streak with a 5-4 win over Philadelphia.
“Attention was on some other guys, so I didn't really feel anything different about it, to be honest,” Carlsson said. “I was never really here, so it wasn't anything different.”
The Flyers could use Carlsson's production. After his two-point game, he now leads the Ducks in scoring with 13 points (three goals, 10 assists). His goal was set up by Cutter Gauthier, the player he was referencing, who the fans were paying attention to, as their vitriolic chants still target Gauthier after forcing a trade from the Flyers in January 2024.
The Flyers and Ducks have been linked multiple times in the past two years. After acquiring Jamie Drysdale for Gauthier, the Flyers also acquired Trevor Zegras from Anaheim.
But the Flyers turned the NHL on it's ear when they tendered the 21-year-old Carlsson to a five-year, $90 million offer sheet on July 3. Its $18 million average annual value was the richest in NHL history at the time. Anaheim matched it six days later, a day before the deadline, keeping Carlsson through the 2030-31 season. Philadelphia kept the four first-round picks it would have owed as compensation.
“Did we expect the offer sheet to be this high? No. We did not see that one coming,” Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek said at the time. “But we’re very confident, with the cap going up and the ability of Leo to make strides of improvement and become an elite player, we feel confident this contract will be a good one in the end.”
Carlsson said then that he couldn’t turn the offer down but hoped Anaheim would keep him.
The No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 draft, Carlsson has improved every season. He had 29 points as a rookie and 45 in 2024-25 before setting career highs with 29 goals, 38 assists and 67 points in 70 games last season. He added 11 points in 12 playoff games.
He entered Saturday with a team-high 11 points on two goals and nine assists in 10 games, with seven of those points on the power play. He assisted on a power play goal by Beckett Sennecke against Philadelphia.
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