Blackhawks’ Concerns Over Connor Bedard’s Contract After Leo Carlsson’s Offer Sheet

The Philadelphia Flyers and general manager (GM) Danny Briere shook the entire hockey world by extending an offer sheet to Leo Carlsson, with Carlsson accepting the contract. It’s a five-year contract that has an $18 million annual average value (AAV). The Anaheim Ducks now have seven days to decide if they want to match the lucrative offer made that will make him the highest-paid player in the league. If Anaheim decides they don’t want to match, Philadelphia has to give them its next four first-round picks. 

This now impacts the Chicago Blackhawks and Connor Bedard. How? Bedard is a restricted free agent (RFA), and as of right now, he doesn’t have a contract for this upcoming season. The Blackhawks have extended a qualifying offer to him, but at any moment, a team can offer sheet him (granted, he needs to accept the offer), and then the Blackhawks will find themselves in the same situation as the Ducks. Also, with Carlsson guaranteed to make $18 million next season, no matter if he is on the Ducks or Flyers, will this drive up Bedard’s price? 

Bedard’s Shoulder Scare 

Journalist Ryan McGregor has been in Vancouver the entire offseason so far, covering Bedard and his training process. On July 2, he announced that Bedard had taken a fall and hurt his left shoulder. 

A couple of hours later, we got a video of the incident, and it didn’t look good. Bedard immediately left the ice in a lot of pain, and we aren’t going to hear anything on the incident until at the very least Monday (From ‘Blackhawks star Connor Bedard suffers apparent injury during offseason training’ – The Athletic, 7/3/2026). Right now, the hope is that it’s nothing serious. If there’s any silver lining here, it’s the fact that he didn’t reaggravate the right shoulder, which he missed a chunk of time for last season. 

Bedard, in his first three NHL seasons, has only one full campaign under his belt. In his rookie season, he broke his jaw after getting hit by New Jersey Devils defenseman Brenden Dillon. This past campaign, he missed four weeks with a right shoulder injury he suffered after a faceoff, and apparently, he dealt with it for a long time after that. While calling him “injury prone” would be unfair as of this moment, it’s not out of the question — two injuries and a freak incident in a short amount of time — it’s slowly inching towards that territory. All Chicago can do now is wait for Monday, or sometime around there, for an update and hope it’s good. 

Carlsson’s Offer Sheet 

There’s no question that every one of Carlsson, Bedard, and Adam Fantilli’s camps were waiting to see which young gun would bite first and sign a contract. That would set the precedent for future offers, and they’d look and say, “They got this much money. I want that.” However, it’s safe to say none of them expected the Flyers to jump in, performing backflips, and offer Carlsson $18 million per year and, while doing so, be more than happy to give up four first-round selections in the process. 

This could easily raise Bedard’s price to about the same as Kirill Kaprizov’s or even match or pass Carlsson’s contract. The Blackhawks and Bedard have finally exchanged numbers on what a new contract would look like, but between this and the shoulder, depending on the outcome, things probably changed. Does Bedard look at this and raise his price, or does he say he only wants to sign until he is an unrestricted free agent like Carlsson? Or if there is really something wrong with that left shoulder now, do the Blackhawks question his history and bring down the price or bring down the term instead? 

The whole situation just got a lot more interesting. With Bedard’s shoulder now in question, it was figured that talks were going to be put on hold, at least for a little bit. But now there is a true threat of an offer sheet — teams aren’t afraid to do it anymore — in fact, some organizations might even prefer it. Between those two things, Davidson’s blood pressure must be through the roof right now (as it should be). 

That doesn’t change the fact that it would’ve been ideal to have this done before July 1, because there was always a chance of this happening (someone getting paid and a Bedard offer sheet). For now, though, focus on what happened to his shoulder. After that, business needs to be handled swiftly, and Bedard needs to put pen to paper and ink a deal to be a Blackhawk next season. Davidson cannot be like GM Pat Verbeek, play hardball, and let this happen.

If Bedard is offer-sheeted, there shouldn’t be any question that the Blackhawks won’t match it. Davidson isn’t afraid to pay the players he truly believes in, too; he just made Bowen Byram the highest-paid defenseman in the NHL. Bedard is going to get paid and stay a Blackhawk — there’s no feasible scenario that has him leaving — the price might’ve just skyrocketed. After these two events, the question is how much and for how long? We may have gone back to square one.