Carlsson Is Worth Every Dollar. Now the Ducks Have to Prove It.
When the Ducks matched Philadelphia's offer sheet on Leo Carlsson in July, locking him in at $18 million AAV over five years, the move immediately set the market for young elite centers. Then Macklin Celebrini signed with San Jose at $18.8 million, and Carlsson slid to second on the all-time AAV list. That one-two punch tells you everything about where the NHL's center economy has arrived — and it clarifies, with uncomfortable precision, exactly what Anaheim has wagered its next half-decade on.
Here is my declaration: Carlsson is worth it. The bet is correct. The problem is everything around him.
The historical precedent for franchise-center commitments at this scale is instructive. Teams that have paid top-of-market money for a 21-year-old center have generally been right about the player and wrong about the timeline — wrong about how long it takes to build a complete roster around that anchor. The 2025-26 Ducks were a case study in that exact trap before the contract was even signed. Carlsson posted 48 points in 49 games, which is the production line of a genuine first-line center. But the team went 2-8 in its final 10 games, allowing 4.1 goals per game in a defensive collapse that made their season record — 43-39, out of the playoffs — feel generous. The talent at the top was never the issue.
What makes the $18 million commitment a pressure test rather than a celebration is the roster that surrounds it. Troy Terry, who led the team in assists with 33 and contributed 46 points, is out for the start of 2026-27 following hip surgery, a recovery timeline of five to six months from his June procedure. Mason McTavish was traded to St. Louis. Olen Zellweger was moved to Buffalo. The Ducks have shed real contributors in exchange for draft capital and flexibility, which is a perfectly defensible organizational philosophy — until you realize that Carlsson's $18 million cap hit is eating into the very flexibility they're claiming to prize. Every dollar spent on the cornerstone is a dollar that doesn't go to the depth that cornerstone needs to thrive.
The defensive picture is the most urgent concern. Jackson LaCombe anchors the blue line at 24.4 minutes per game, and Pavel Mintyukov's five-year extension provides a second young piece to build around. But the depth behind those two is thin to the point of fragility. Last season, when the defense crumbled in the final stretch, Mintyukov's ice time surged roughly 30 percent above his season baseline — the coaching staff leaning desperately on a young defenseman because there was no one else. That structural vulnerability has not been resolved. The Ducks have added youth and organizational depth through the Nikita Klepov signing and the Sean Farrell acquisition, but none of those moves address the immediate gap between LaCombe and everyone else on the back end.
Cutter Gauthier gives Anaheim a second legitimate offensive weapon — 22 goals and 42 points last season — and the Carlsson-Gauthier pairing at the top of the lineup is a genuine foundation. But the 2025-26 season revealed how quickly that foundation cracks without depth. The Ducks went 24-12 in one-goal games, a clutch record that papered over real structural weakness and almost certainly won't repeat. When the close-game luck normalized in the final stretch, the defense gave out and the offense dried up. Gauthier converted just 5.3 percent of his shots over the last 10 games. The margin for error, in other words, is razor-thin even when the top players are performing. When they aren't, the floor drops fast.
The Celebrini extension is a useful mirror. San Jose made the same calculation Anaheim did — that elite young centers are worth historic money — and now both Pacific Division franchises are committed to that logic for the next five years. The difference is that Celebrini's contract comes with the explicit acknowledgment that the Sharks are still building. Anaheim's situation is more ambiguous. The Ducks are not a rebuild anymore — 43 wins and a near-playoff finish says so — but they are not yet a contender. They occupy the most dangerous zone in the sport