- Cutter Gauthier’s next deal could reach a $15M average annual value, per The Fourth Period
- The Ducks have until Friday to match Leo Carlsson’s $90M offer sheet
- Read below for how the cap math leaves Anaheim in a bind either way
The Anaheim Ducks might have to pay Cutter Gauthier like a superstar before they even settle the Leo Carlsson question.
David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported on The Sheet with Jeff Marek that Gauthier’s next contract could carry an average annual value as high as $15 million. That’s a huge number for a restricted free agent, and it lands at the worst possible time for Anaheim.
Gauthier led the Ducks with 41 goals and 69 points in 76 games as a 22-year-old. He’s coming off a $950,000 entry-level deal, and a winger who just scored 40-plus isn’t signing anything cheap. He doesn’t have the service time to be poached, so Pat Verbeek controls his rights outright.
The bigger problem is the clock. Verbeek has until Friday to decide whether to match the five-year, $90 million offer sheet the Flyers handed Carlsson. That’s an $18 million cap hit, which would make the 21-year-old center the highest-paid player in the league.
Philadelphia spelled it all out when they tendered the sheet:
Match it, and Anaheim is left with just under $10 million in cap space, per PuckPedia. That’s nowhere close to a $15 million Gauthier deal. Walk away, and the Ducks pocket four first-round picks but lose a 69-point scorer they just developed.
Anaheim landed Gauthier in the first place by flipping Jamie Drysdale to Philadelphia back in January 2024. Here’s the move that started all of this:
Two years later, Gauthier is the best goal-scorer they’ve got, and the reason the Carlsson call is only half of Verbeek’s headache this week.
