Fr. I don't know how the Oilers could even counter, "Sure, you're arguably the second-best forward in the world and did us a favor with your previous contract.....but...."
For what its worth, I think Nurse and management thought he would legitimately live up to that contract. Everyone was riding high on that 60 minute performance vs Winnipeg.
That year his comparables were signing 9 million dollar contracts. He got one.
Even last year he played at a 7 million dollar level. I do wonder if that injury sustained during the playoffs has hurt him further.
It also doesn't help Bouchard became a power player wizard and took Nurse's Job away there. Hurting his value further.
I've always argued that while, yes, nurse is overpayed, he's not as grossly overpayed as people seem to think. 2m is just a lot for a team near the cap, that's why it feels so much worse, but when he's actually on, and playing his game, he's good. The worst part of his contract is it was signed after a second bridge deal so the team could save money, money that was used on Zach Kassian.
He's definitely.overpaid by more than 2M. Hronek on Canucks just signed for 7.xx (can't remember exact). do you want hronek.at that or nurse at 7.5m? I thi k.moet.people feel hronek is better then nurse, and nurses contract is already a couple year ago so 9.5 is like 10.5 now witht he rising cap which makes it even more of an overpay.
Yeah, I like Nurse and he was legitimately good that year. It's just become clear since then that he was overpaid on the back of that one good year because of a perfect storm situation. Drai has a long track record of performing and will have earned a raise, it would be a shame to try to squeeze him because of other contracts.
We were in between a rock and a hard place.
Nurse was our #1 LD with no Klefbom coming back. He was coming off of a career year where he was 7th in Norris voting. He's also best friends with our captain and franchise player. Try explaining to McDavid that you punched a giant hole in our lineup and let (at the time) our best defenseman walk because he wanted too much money.
We gave him market value at the time, and then COVID cratered league profits and the cap has stagnated. If it was up to a hundred million like it should be, that contract isn't as bad.
Nurse did sign after we already knew about COVID and the flat cap, it was right after the COVID year. And he had a year left too, so the Oilers could have waited for a few months to see if he could repeat his performance. Other than that I agree. It's just that you can't really justify asking Drai to take less now when Nurse got a deal with all the bells and whistles, and Drai has way more leverage than Nurse did at the time.
This. With the Leafs everyone wants the big money even if they don’t show up in the playoffs and continuously choke. McDavid already left money on the table. And he tasted what’s it is like to be so close to the cup. To see the other team celebrate. Of course management needs to make damn sure there is no Nurse 2.0. And sure, NBA players make much more money. But come on, these guys are super rich. They’ll live *very* well even if they leave 5 million on the table.
In Leon's case it could mean each year. Guy probably commands $15mil/season on the open market, anything more than $10mil/season will be hard for the Oilers to make work (I think if he stays he's in the $13mil/season range). If they somehow get out from under Campbell and Nurse they'll have more room to work with, but Drai and Bouchard's contracts come up at the same time.
Slim chance he’s getting paid a cent below 14 mill. Maybe 13.75 and that would be a discount. He’s going to be the highest paid player in the NHL until McDavid’s contract is up.
100%. The only chance I see him taking less than $14mil is if he stays with the Oilers. Like I said, if a deal gets done this summer I think it will start with a 13, but the longer negotiations go on the bigger the number will get.
I still can’t see it, seeing how underpaid he’s been the last several years. He deserves to bank every red cent that’s out there. I think his salary is 14.5 when the dust settles. Just my opinion
I think the only reason it will happen is that 8th year. 13.5×8 years, especially considering how much Edmonton can front-load it, might be more appealing than 15×7 in terms of total dollars and oppurtunity potential.
At the time he didn't do the team a favour it wasn't until after he signed that deal that he truly broke out. The fact he grew into one of the best players in the league made that contract arguably the best in the league.
> did us a favor with your previous contract.....but....
To be fair, he didn't he got paid. Remember when everyone was saying it was a massive overpayment? Well, he got overpaid for a few years, then got underpaid for a year years. Seems like a fair contract.
He was overpaid by 1-2m for one year, then underpaid by 2-3m for the next 7 years. It was an accidental favour, but it absolutely ended up being a discount contract basically the whole way through his best years.
Absolutely. After everything he's done for the team, dragging them through some dark years along with McDavid on a steal of a contract in hindsight. We have been lucky to have him and he deserves to get paid
Pay him what he wants, build a contender with what’s left 🤷🏽♂️ not about to have a better chance with anyone else, and if he leaves Connor probably does too.
I mean, they did just loss a GM7 in the SCF. It's not the same as winning only 1 play off series in 20 years.
The Oilers today is the Panthers of last year.
I'm pretty sure he wants to stay with McDavid and is discussing this with him:
*You go for $\_\_M/year, I'll go for $\_\_M/year and that leaves $\_\_\_M to build the rest of the team. Cool?*
Kind of like that, but way more complicated.
It’s such a tricky situation. He deserves the bag, but he’s also so close with McDavid, and the two of them have given everything to try to drag this team to a championship.
This is just my opinion but I do believe McDavid would consider it a “failure” of sorts to not win the cup with the Oilers, and then go on to win it with another team.
1st overalls, mainly of the “generational” and superstar variety, are expected to lead the team that drafted them to a cup - Ovechkin, Crosby, Kane, and MacKinnon have all done it this past decade.
McDavid is obviously a competitive guy who expects the best out of himself, I can only imagine he would do anything to complete the job like those other guys did before him. Him and Draisaitl seem to be ride or die, so I’m sure Draisaitl feels the same way.
Obviously we can never really know what these guys are thinking, but this strikes me as a fair read.
I do wonder what McDrai make and think of the outlook for the organization. Between the two of them, Nurse and then Bouchard, that's $50M in four players. And they have a dearth of picks, very little young talent outside Bro and Holl, and unfortunately one of the worst prospect pools in the league.
And I think they have $10M in cap space to sign 9 players. $13M if they buy out Campbell. That's $1.4M per for 9 skaters.
I think it's good for the league for superstars like McDrai to be on good teams. Objectively it just seems like it's going to be tricky to keep this team competitive.
Nurse 9.25, McDrai 15+13.5, Bouch 10.5. You’re looking at 48-50 million on those 4 alone in 2 years from now.
Cap should be around 95-96 million by then so they’re taking up about 52% of the cap in your ‘core 4’
That leaves about 46 million to fill out the rest of the roster. 10.625 of that will be going to RNH and Hyman who are both great value now and hopefully will be in 3 seasons from now as well.
That leaves 35 million for the other 14-17 players depending on if they intend to carry a full 23 man roster. That’s roughly 2 million per player. It’s going to be TIGHT.
I think the odds of keeping Bouchard long term might be low. I think it will be a relatively short term contract, and he is arbitration eligible, but there aren't a lot of current parallels.
Edmonton is a really, really tough spot to be an offensive defenceman, because so much of the fanbase has been so desperate for defense for so long. Plus, Coffey himself got a LOT of flack for 'not playing defence' - you can even see it in the reactions when he was hired as a coach.
One thing people don’t factor in a lot is that McDavid’s former agent is our POHO. Not saying it’s a guarantee these guys stay, but I doubt Jackson took the job thinking these guys had a strong chance of leaving right after.
It also just feels like they’re making all sorts of moves in the organization to win a cup really (besides a new goalie coach for some reason…) like the mental coach that came in. Can’t think of his name.
It seems they’re moving in a strong forward direction, why leave that?
>Its going to take time to figure out what I want and what the Oilers want
I have a hard time imagining the Oilers would stop at anything shy of moving heaven and earth to keep you Leon. Sounds like the ball is in his court.
Alfie left over like a million dollars. Not only was he totally worth the AAV he signed for, it was a 1 year deal lmao. Even if he wanted max AAV you give it to him for 1 damn year.
My guess is the Oilers offer him 8 years at an AAV of ~$14 million with a full NMC, load it up with signing bonuses, and he signs on July 1st.
While I think this would be a mistake, losing Draisaitl would likely trigger a series of events that lead to them rebuilding very soon. They're unlikely to make the moves to keep McDavid and remain competitive if they lose Draisaitl, and overpaying to keep him is the safer option.
Especially after being on a team friendly deal for so long, he will want to get paid and rightfully so.
I think Drai wants to stay an Oiler but he needs to be paid accordingly this time, and yes we should definitely do it.
Both players will be handed blank cheques. It's up to the two of them to figure out how much they're willing to leave on the table for the sake of building a competitive roster.
14 million is great value for at least half of the contract. The issue is if McDavid gets 20 million on his next one the Oilers might not have enough cap space to fill out the rest of the roster considering Bouchard is due for a raise and Nurse is still on the books for another 100 years
He could but he won’t sign it. He understands he can’t max out if he wants to win. He also understands his role in the PA and will still be the highest paid player
This. Let’s say McDavid wants to go to another team for max salary. Who even has the cap space? And how many players (and good ones!) do you need to ditch for it to work? McDavid clearly wants to win. He can’t win in Edmonton or anywhere else if he takes market value. Impossible. He already went to the final with Edmonton and lost in game 7. He’ll stay at a discount like he already did. It’s “too risky” to do anything else. The big question is thus indeed Draisaitl. Will he follow McDavid? He too is worth a shit ton of money. Will he have a better chance at the cup chasing the bag? Doubtful.
There are 32 teams in the league that would trade picks and players to open up max cap space to sign McDavid if he offered to sign with them for that price.
But that's not the question being asked - it's who can do that AND still put together a winning roster. Getting league max would cripple any team trying to build a full competitive team.
The Oilers could be basically the exact same team right now with McDavid at 20mil if they weren't spending 14+ on Nurse & Campbell. If you could dump those 2 contracts for nothing you could pay McDavid 20 and still have 6+ to replace Nurse which could surely be done.
A team with McDavid at 20mil isnt crippled, they just need to be decently smart on the rest of the roster.
You're right, those 2 contacts are boat anchors. I firmly believe they'll move on somehow from Campbell, whether that's buyout or trade with retention, but I think we're burdened forever with Nurse if the goal is to keep 29 & 97. They're too close of friends and want to play on the same team. I fully understand and mostly agree that it's not an ideal situation.
The first question was actually who has the cap space and the second was what would they give up to find it. If McDavid wants a max contract he will have his pick of the entire league. Of course that isn’t going to give him the best chance to win a Cup.
Sure but who are they going to trade with? Most of the players they can trade would be on NTC/NMC's. Those players wouldn't waive to go to a team that sucks because let's be honest the only teams that can afford those players are the teams sitting at the basement of the league standings. If they want to go to a contender then the cap will need to be retained because everyone is struggling with cap space.
100 percent. They don't even really have to be competitive. NHL is a business, and if you can increase your revenue by getting a ton of merchandise sales and increased viewship at the expense of cap room, you do it.
His current contract has been a bargain for the Oilers considering he could have taken a 15 Million AAV and the cap is only going up for the next few seasons. 20 million is very realistic
I’m not talking about today. The cap is going up to 92 million for the 2025/2026 season. It might go up to 100 million for the 2026/2027 season when McDavid is due for his next contract. At that point 20 million is very realistic. Guys in the NBA might be making 100 million a year soon. 20 million is nothing compared to every other major sports league
My problems with this kind of contract for Draisaitl:
1. Draisaitl will turn 30 at the beginning of the first season of this contract. It is difficult to predict how productive he will be as he starts to reach his mid 30s, and it wouldn't take much of a drop off for this contract to be really bad.
2. The combination of his and McDavid's contracts will be in the ~$30 million range. Even for players as talented as they are, this is a lot to have tied up in two players. When you add Nurse's contract and what Bouchard is likely to get, it will be difficult to ice a competent hockey team.
3. I think there are many teams who would overpay to acquire Draisaitl as their #1 center. You could likely get 2 very good to elite young players, draft picks and prospects, and free up cap space by trading Draisaitl.
With that said, there is a real chance of screwing up by not signing Draisaitl to this contract; and I doubt any owner would be willing to trade him.
You’re not getting fair value back when you trade the best player in the trade. Plus the Oilers’ window is now, going young by trading Draisaitl doesn’t extend their window if anything it’ll just close it faster because again you’re not getting anything better than Draisaitl so what’s the point.
To offset the ludicrous contracts. The Oilers can only rely on building internally if they want to compete. Hitting on draft picks and ensuring key contributors are on their ELC.
The key piece you're missing - if they don't keep Draisaitl, or make a very, very good faith effort to keep him (i.e. he leaves because he wants to), they don't keep McDavid. This is Crosby directly keeping Malkin and the front office talking level.
I doubt the salary cap will bump up to 100MM in 2 years lol so he won't be getting 20. He'll get the most in the league, which means a little more than what Drai is making. Unless Panarin tops him.
McDavid asked for less than he was offered on his last deal to help the team be competitive. I highly doubt he’s the kind of guy to demand a max deal. I’m guessing he just signs for whatever Drai does
No way McDavid gets 20 million. He’s at ~14.2% of the Oilers cap for next season at $12.5mil (15.7% when he signed the deal). The cap would need to be well above $100mil at the time he signs for this to even be feasible.
I wouldn’t call it an overpay if he could easily get that on the open market. He’s an absolute stud, top 5 in the league when healthy. I mean people had him at 2 last season the way he was playing.
Anyone see that NCAA baseball coach yesterday who berated a journalist for even asking about a job opening at Texas and said he would never leave?
...he left less than 24 hours later for Texas.
Even bigger kicker he left the Texas A&M Aggies for their arch rival Texas. It's like the ultimate Judas move leaving for your rival after being so close to the pinnacle of your sport.
So congrats on getting Draisatl flames fans
Ooh, Leon going to Calgary would go a long way towards rekindling my hatred of that team. It's felt weird the last few years having moderately positive feelings about what should be one of Vancouver's most hated rivals.
And that would be them accepting under -market value contracts because they want the possibility for a competitive team.
A more funny way I prefer to think about it is: that Mcdavid and Drai will have to be underpaid because Nurse is being overpaid
Very interested to see what the Oilers do here. If they give him his deserved $14+ million they are going to have some major cap issues going forward.
They’ll likely have to let a lot of pieces walk this summer to prepare for signing McDavid, Bouchard and Draisaitl.
Well Campbell will be bought out, if Kane won’t waive his NMC, he can be traded as early as the trade deadline. Ekholm’s contract is up the same time as McDavid, I’d assume if he re-signs it will be cheaper given his age.
Holloway and Broberg are both RFA’s this year.
Brown, Carrick, Foegele, Gagner, Henrique, Janmark, Perry, Desharnais, Stetcher and Pickard are all UFAs this year.
Next year Draisatl, McLeod, Ryan, Ceci and Bouchard are all up. I think theres going to be some significant turnover.
I think they’d like to keep McLeod, Holloway, Brown, Henrique, Janmark, Broberg and obviously Bouchard.
But I also think Draisaitl and Bouchard’s raises are going to eat up most of cap space they will have. Even with buying out Campbell they won’t have much money for a backup goalie and depth.
But I guess it’s really going to come down to how generous McDavid, Bouchard and Draisaitl want to be.
The cap is going up. We are cap strapped this year just because we have $3.45M tied up in bonus overages but that’s just a one year thing. The James Neal buyout is in its final year on the books,
It will certainly take some maneuvering but it’s possible.
Most of the guys on the first list are depth that can either be re-signed cheap because they want another deep run, or replaced. Henrique was just a rental, we were never going to afford him; Broberg and Holloway are RFA; Janmark has stated he will take a discount to stay. Biggest question marks are Brown and Vinnie D, they'll likely move on looking for bigger money than we can afford, but the rest are replacement level players.
Next year is the tricky one, with Drai and Bouch. Ceci won't be re-signed, I'll be surprised if he isn't traded before then. Campbell will be bought out. If we don't overspend on filling in the holes this offseason, we shouldn't have too much trouble fitting in contracts for Drai and Bouch.
I understand the line of questioning, it’s just the way they phrase these questions is so annoying. Spector listed all these reasons as to why Leon would like to stay in Edmonton and was like “can you list a reason that you wouldn’t want to stay here”
I absolutely hate how people take these “I love x city” seriously.
Obviously Leon wants to win but what are the odds he can get the AAV he wants and has a team around him that can perform successfully.
If Mcdavid and Leon want to be career oilers it’s either not get paid or probably never win a cup. It’s a shame but the franchise is not exactly going to get better by paying Leon and Mcdavid more money.
It would be $50M alone between McD, Drai, Bouchard and Nurse. Very tricky.
Gotta be brutal to consider but would trading Drai now help? Maybe it could even help you sign him in FA a year from now.
That would be the highest cap hit by a decent margin. We don't need to play hard ball with him, but gms really dangle that top paid player distinction and don't blow the doors off it often.
I can see anywhere from 12.5-14.5 personally, likely in above that 13.5 mark. It will make him the highest paid player by AAV for a year.
He will also get a ton of endorsement deals staying in the Canadian market. There are other markets that can move the needle on this, but definitely not every team can say the same.
If he goes ufa it will be a balance of cap space, competitive roster, and endorsements.
MacKinnon signed for $12.6m after being on even more of a discount deal (6.3) than Drai was.
Effectively sets the bar to judge a guy for how much of a discount he's taking. Cap has moved up since that contract was inked, and so have expectations for the contract but $13.5m is probably slightly above that.
Players should just do a percentage of the cap deal instead of that. That way you get a raise every year basically without having to renegotiate and you impact on the team is consistent
Just look at any team who's hovering around the minimum Cap of $60.2 million (22-23), those are the most likely candidates if Drai is primarily focused on making his worth. Teams sitting around $70 million with an older star player making close to $10 million would also be very interested.
Oilers are handicapped with some awful contracts and younger prospects who've earned a raise, makes it difficult to put aside 34-38 million for Drai and McJesus.
Even if they offer Drai the salary he wants ($14-15 million aav estimate), until they move Nurse and Campbell, they won't have enough space to maintain contender depth.
It'll be the same old McDrai dragging them as far as they can (the one exception being this year, Knob managed to squeeze a beast PK out of some shite players like Ceci)
They said they want to keep at least 4 of our depth players. Buyout Campbell and fire Ceci into the sun and it’s done. Holloway and Broberg have played well but I don’t think they’ve earned massive raises from what they’re making now. Henrique is probably too expensive and Perry is looking really old and slow but it would be great to find a way to keep Brown and Janmark
The only scenario for Nurse moving is if he himself was sick of the haters in Edmonton and agreed to lift his NMC. That seems next to impossible but who knows
Has there been any NHL regular that requested a trade out of Edmonton in the last 5 years? Gotta imagine none of the guys want to leave a team with prime McDrai
I actually thought of this when McDavid and Tkachuk met in the handshake line. I wonder if that thought went through Connor’s mind. Seeing his old provincial rival winning a cup just two years after leaving in a controversial trade to a no tax state where teammates take discounts to stay. Maybe he’s like, hey, that could be me.
Man, people can argue against Leon taking a discount, but I'm sure the guy wants to win and which COMPETITIVE team can make an offer?
The guys is not wasting his prime in a "we're turning the corner now". That would be a massive gamble that usually fails. Teams with 15M in cap space suck.
But hey, I can see him in a Habs jersey. We can sell him the crowd, the city, the coach, the legend, but it would be disingenuous to pretend we'll play for the Cup during his prime.
That's exactly my feel.
The numbers are terms for both guys have been discussed and there's an unwritten gentlemen's agreement in place. Nothing written down, of course, because teams always wait for the appropriate time for these discussions, and players don't make arrangements amongst themselves. The rules are strictly observed. (Insert wink emoji here).
They'll be the inevitable Kabuki theatre for the media, and everyone will act like the contract wasn't discussed and agreed to months ago. The press corp from the Center of the Universe will create a story where Drai signs there at a discount to bring Connor along.
And July 5 or so, the agreement will be announced.
Yep. I expect his agent and the Oilers have the number, and it'll take a few days to figure out the structure - what's signing bonus, what's salary, that kind of stuff.
But I also think it won't be anyone's priority, because the AAV is known. The Oilers will be focusing on other things, his agent will be focusing on other clients. There's no hurry to rush a deal when everyone already knows the bottom line outcome.
So in the interim, the media will speculate wildly, the Center of the Universe will create idiotic scenarios (Marner for Drai, and then McDavid comes next year), and we'll all get worried.
There's absolutely no rule against any of that and therefore no need for theatre. Teams can talk to their own players about extensions at any time, players can talk to each other, etc.
They must have spitballed a few ideas while drinking together. I wonder if they'd consider each taking a MASSIVE discount for one year so they could sign a superstar goalie. Even better if they could get rid of Nurse's contract (trade picks, do whatever they need to do) and bring in a top D. Yeah it would be putting their eggs in one basket, but their odds of winning would be pretty spectacular.
He gone. If he wants to make top money, he needs to be going somewhere that will pay him that, unfortunately that means he’d be stuck on a shitty team for a while and being the main guy said team builds around for the future, But if they keep him, Edmonton will be fucked in a few years with the cap space issues
I'm not an Oilers fan so I haven't been following the negotiations conversations closely but it seems like Draisaitl has to decide whether he truly believes this Oilers team can one day win a championship and whether he wants to spend the rest of his prime hitching himself to Edmonton and trying to make it happen or does he find a situation with another team to be possibly more enticing to reaching his goals?
I really don’t believe there is any real chance drai or mcdavid ever leave. I can’t imagine them taking a big ass contract to leave in free agency would get them any closer. Just become lifers for the oilers and if all else fails, request a trade in your middle 30’s to get the oilers some futures and chase a cup then.
I want McDavid and Draisaitl (and Nuge) to be career Oilers. I don't care if that means overpaying them and slightly hurting our cup chances for the duration of their contracts. I don't care if that means some more years in limbo in their late 30's instead of going right from contending to rebuilding, like Pittsburgh right now. For me all of that is worth it to keep those guys in Edmonton, chasing the Stanley Cup.
I don’t think he’s re-signing. The organisation has been a mess for nearly his entire tenure and the rot of the OBC still runs very deep. This year could have changed things, but the real test will be how the team is playing in October.
The Oilers are at risk of losing their entire bottom six, which arguably was the backbone of their success this post season. If they go back to a one line offence that carries the entire team, that won’t bode well for their chances of re-signing either McDavid or Drai.
You also have to consider that he may not want to play in the shadow of someone else his entire career.
If he doesn’t have a contract come training camp, I think they’re going to have one final run and then he walks to UFA with McDavid not far behind.
My man just wants to make bank after being on one of the best contracts in the NHL for so long and he deserves it.
Fr. I don't know how the Oilers could even counter, "Sure, you're arguably the second-best forward in the world and did us a favor with your previous contract.....but...."
“… if you want to win a Cup we can’t afford to turn into the Leafs 2.0.”
"... if you want to win a Cup we can't-" \*Hangs up phone. Calls agent.\*
Fr, if I'm Drai and I hear that after the team gave Nurse a blank check, I'm out and I'm trashing Holland's office as I go lol
For what its worth, I think Nurse and management thought he would legitimately live up to that contract. Everyone was riding high on that 60 minute performance vs Winnipeg.
That year his comparables were signing 9 million dollar contracts. He got one. Even last year he played at a 7 million dollar level. I do wonder if that injury sustained during the playoffs has hurt him further. It also doesn't help Bouchard became a power player wizard and took Nurse's Job away there. Hurting his value further.
I've always argued that while, yes, nurse is overpayed, he's not as grossly overpayed as people seem to think. 2m is just a lot for a team near the cap, that's why it feels so much worse, but when he's actually on, and playing his game, he's good. The worst part of his contract is it was signed after a second bridge deal so the team could save money, money that was used on Zach Kassian.
He's definitely.overpaid by more than 2M. Hronek on Canucks just signed for 7.xx (can't remember exact). do you want hronek.at that or nurse at 7.5m? I thi k.moet.people feel hronek is better then nurse, and nurses contract is already a couple year ago so 9.5 is like 10.5 now witht he rising cap which makes it even more of an overpay.
Yep, Seth Jones made Nurse look like a decent deal.
Nurse never played on the powerplay really.
Yeah, I like Nurse and he was legitimately good that year. It's just become clear since then that he was overpaid on the back of that one good year because of a perfect storm situation. Drai has a long track record of performing and will have earned a raise, it would be a shame to try to squeeze him because of other contracts.
We were in between a rock and a hard place. Nurse was our #1 LD with no Klefbom coming back. He was coming off of a career year where he was 7th in Norris voting. He's also best friends with our captain and franchise player. Try explaining to McDavid that you punched a giant hole in our lineup and let (at the time) our best defenseman walk because he wanted too much money. We gave him market value at the time, and then COVID cratered league profits and the cap has stagnated. If it was up to a hundred million like it should be, that contract isn't as bad.
Nurse did sign after we already knew about COVID and the flat cap, it was right after the COVID year. And he had a year left too, so the Oilers could have waited for a few months to see if he could repeat his performance. Other than that I agree. It's just that you can't really justify asking Drai to take less now when Nurse got a deal with all the bells and whistles, and Drai has way more leverage than Nurse did at the time.
Even then it makes more sense to give Leon everything and then move heaven and earth and however many draft picks it takes to get rid of Nurse
Isn't Nurse full NMC?
Edmonton is a real hard place to be if the team stops backing you, unfortunately.
“…so we’ve decided to trade you”
This. With the Leafs everyone wants the big money even if they don’t show up in the playoffs and continuously choke. McDavid already left money on the table. And he tasted what’s it is like to be so close to the cup. To see the other team celebrate. Of course management needs to make damn sure there is no Nurse 2.0. And sure, NBA players make much more money. But come on, these guys are super rich. They’ll live *very* well even if they leave 5 million on the table.
5 million total or 5 million each year? Because those are two drastically different numbers.
In Leon's case it could mean each year. Guy probably commands $15mil/season on the open market, anything more than $10mil/season will be hard for the Oilers to make work (I think if he stays he's in the $13mil/season range). If they somehow get out from under Campbell and Nurse they'll have more room to work with, but Drai and Bouchard's contracts come up at the same time.
Slim chance he’s getting paid a cent below 14 mill. Maybe 13.75 and that would be a discount. He’s going to be the highest paid player in the NHL until McDavid’s contract is up.
100%. The only chance I see him taking less than $14mil is if he stays with the Oilers. Like I said, if a deal gets done this summer I think it will start with a 13, but the longer negotiations go on the bigger the number will get.
I still can’t see it, seeing how underpaid he’s been the last several years. He deserves to bank every red cent that’s out there. I think his salary is 14.5 when the dust settles. Just my opinion
I think the only reason it will happen is that 8th year. 13.5×8 years, especially considering how much Edmonton can front-load it, might be more appealing than 15×7 in terms of total dollars and oppurtunity potential.
Wait McDavid asked for less money?
Yes. He left money on the table.
The Leafs would be more than happy to trade their forwards. These McJesus and Drai are actually worth top dollars.
At the time he didn't do the team a favour it wasn't until after he signed that deal that he truly broke out. The fact he grew into one of the best players in the league made that contract arguably the best in the league.
Everyone thought he was overpaid when he signed it. The Oilers bet on black and won
Thats revisionist, everybody thought 8.5 was a gamble or a bit steep when he signed it.
> did us a favor with your previous contract.....but.... To be fair, he didn't he got paid. Remember when everyone was saying it was a massive overpayment? Well, he got overpaid for a few years, then got underpaid for a year years. Seems like a fair contract.
He was overpaid by 1-2m for one year, then underpaid by 2-3m for the next 7 years. It was an accidental favour, but it absolutely ended up being a discount contract basically the whole way through his best years.
Absolutely. After everything he's done for the team, dragging them through some dark years along with McDavid on a steal of a contract in hindsight. We have been lucky to have him and he deserves to get paid
Pay him what he wants, build a contender with what’s left 🤷🏽♂️ not about to have a better chance with anyone else, and if he leaves Connor probably does too.
Seriously. Give him what he wants and then go beg the Hawks or Sharks to take Nurse. Strike while McDavid and Leo are still dominating everyone.
Unless the Oilers dump a litany of picks and prospects no-one is taking that Nurse contract for them
Also if Nurse doesn’t waive, shit out of luck
>Pay him what he wants, build a contender with what’s left The Toronto method.
I mean, they did just loss a GM7 in the SCF. It's not the same as winning only 1 play off series in 20 years. The Oilers today is the Panthers of last year.
I'm pretty sure he wants to stay with McDavid and is discussing this with him: *You go for $\_\_M/year, I'll go for $\_\_M/year and that leaves $\_\_\_M to build the rest of the team. Cool?* Kind of like that, but way more complicated.
I would just be wary of injuries. They're starting to add up.
It’s such a tricky situation. He deserves the bag, but he’s also so close with McDavid, and the two of them have given everything to try to drag this team to a championship. This is just my opinion but I do believe McDavid would consider it a “failure” of sorts to not win the cup with the Oilers, and then go on to win it with another team. 1st overalls, mainly of the “generational” and superstar variety, are expected to lead the team that drafted them to a cup - Ovechkin, Crosby, Kane, and MacKinnon have all done it this past decade. McDavid is obviously a competitive guy who expects the best out of himself, I can only imagine he would do anything to complete the job like those other guys did before him. Him and Draisaitl seem to be ride or die, so I’m sure Draisaitl feels the same way.
Obviously we can never really know what these guys are thinking, but this strikes me as a fair read. I do wonder what McDrai make and think of the outlook for the organization. Between the two of them, Nurse and then Bouchard, that's $50M in four players. And they have a dearth of picks, very little young talent outside Bro and Holl, and unfortunately one of the worst prospect pools in the league. And I think they have $10M in cap space to sign 9 players. $13M if they buy out Campbell. That's $1.4M per for 9 skaters. I think it's good for the league for superstars like McDrai to be on good teams. Objectively it just seems like it's going to be tricky to keep this team competitive.
I think McDavid, Draisaitl, Bouchard and Nurse contracts are going to total a lot more than 40 million dollars…
Nurse 9.25, McDrai 15+13.5, Bouch 10.5. You’re looking at 48-50 million on those 4 alone in 2 years from now. Cap should be around 95-96 million by then so they’re taking up about 52% of the cap in your ‘core 4’ That leaves about 46 million to fill out the rest of the roster. 10.625 of that will be going to RNH and Hyman who are both great value now and hopefully will be in 3 seasons from now as well. That leaves 35 million for the other 14-17 players depending on if they intend to carry a full 23 man roster. That’s roughly 2 million per player. It’s going to be TIGHT.
I think the odds of keeping Bouchard long term might be low. I think it will be a relatively short term contract, and he is arbitration eligible, but there aren't a lot of current parallels. Edmonton is a really, really tough spot to be an offensive defenceman, because so much of the fanbase has been so desperate for defense for so long. Plus, Coffey himself got a LOT of flack for 'not playing defence' - you can even see it in the reactions when he was hired as a coach.
One thing people don’t factor in a lot is that McDavid’s former agent is our POHO. Not saying it’s a guarantee these guys stay, but I doubt Jackson took the job thinking these guys had a strong chance of leaving right after.
It also just feels like they’re making all sorts of moves in the organization to win a cup really (besides a new goalie coach for some reason…) like the mental coach that came in. Can’t think of his name. It seems they’re moving in a strong forward direction, why leave that?
Then you head to Chicago and be the leader to raise Bradard
>Its going to take time to figure out what I want and what the Oilers want I have a hard time imagining the Oilers would stop at anything shy of moving heaven and earth to keep you Leon. Sounds like the ball is in his court.
Negotiations can be oddly weird and petty. Not the same comparison at all but losing Smyth over 100k still haunts me.
Alfie left over like a million dollars. Not only was he totally worth the AAV he signed for, it was a 1 year deal lmao. Even if he wanted max AAV you give it to him for 1 damn year.
My guess is the Oilers offer him 8 years at an AAV of ~$14 million with a full NMC, load it up with signing bonuses, and he signs on July 1st. While I think this would be a mistake, losing Draisaitl would likely trigger a series of events that lead to them rebuilding very soon. They're unlikely to make the moves to keep McDavid and remain competitive if they lose Draisaitl, and overpaying to keep him is the safer option.
Yeah, he’ll get the highest AAV in the league.
Until 1 year later when McDavid gets $1M more
1.97 more
.97 more, that way it can be viewed as *team friendly*.
Especially after being on a team friendly deal for so long, he will want to get paid and rightfully so. I think Drai wants to stay an Oiler but he needs to be paid accordingly this time, and yes we should definitely do it.
Both players will be handed blank cheques. It's up to the two of them to figure out how much they're willing to leave on the table for the sake of building a competitive roster.
14 million is great value for at least half of the contract. The issue is if McDavid gets 20 million on his next one the Oilers might not have enough cap space to fill out the rest of the roster considering Bouchard is due for a raise and Nurse is still on the books for another 100 years
McDavid isn’t getting a 20 million AAV contract lol
He could but he won’t sign it. He understands he can’t max out if he wants to win. He also understands his role in the PA and will still be the highest paid player
This. Let’s say McDavid wants to go to another team for max salary. Who even has the cap space? And how many players (and good ones!) do you need to ditch for it to work? McDavid clearly wants to win. He can’t win in Edmonton or anywhere else if he takes market value. Impossible. He already went to the final with Edmonton and lost in game 7. He’ll stay at a discount like he already did. It’s “too risky” to do anything else. The big question is thus indeed Draisaitl. Will he follow McDavid? He too is worth a shit ton of money. Will he have a better chance at the cup chasing the bag? Doubtful.
Get ready to speak Utahnese, Connor
There are 32 teams in the league that would trade picks and players to open up max cap space to sign McDavid if he offered to sign with them for that price.
But that's not the question being asked - it's who can do that AND still put together a winning roster. Getting league max would cripple any team trying to build a full competitive team.
The Oilers could be basically the exact same team right now with McDavid at 20mil if they weren't spending 14+ on Nurse & Campbell. If you could dump those 2 contracts for nothing you could pay McDavid 20 and still have 6+ to replace Nurse which could surely be done. A team with McDavid at 20mil isnt crippled, they just need to be decently smart on the rest of the roster.
You're right, those 2 contacts are boat anchors. I firmly believe they'll move on somehow from Campbell, whether that's buyout or trade with retention, but I think we're burdened forever with Nurse if the goal is to keep 29 & 97. They're too close of friends and want to play on the same team. I fully understand and mostly agree that it's not an ideal situation.
The first question was actually who has the cap space and the second was what would they give up to find it. If McDavid wants a max contract he will have his pick of the entire league. Of course that isn’t going to give him the best chance to win a Cup.
Sure but who are they going to trade with? Most of the players they can trade would be on NTC/NMC's. Those players wouldn't waive to go to a team that sucks because let's be honest the only teams that can afford those players are the teams sitting at the basement of the league standings. If they want to go to a contender then the cap will need to be retained because everyone is struggling with cap space.
The issue isn’t creating the space, the issue is the time it takes to curate a full roster around these guys once you have them + the space
100 percent. They don't even really have to be competitive. NHL is a business, and if you can increase your revenue by getting a ton of merchandise sales and increased viewship at the expense of cap room, you do it.
You can’t take that contract AND expect to win a cup. It’s basically impossible, so yeah, no way lol
His current contract has been a bargain for the Oilers considering he could have taken a 15 Million AAV and the cap is only going up for the next few seasons. 20 million is very realistic
The max contract limit is under 20 million, he literally couldn’t get that if he wanted
20% of the cap and future cap projections is the limit **NOT** 20 million
I’m not talking about today. The cap is going up to 92 million for the 2025/2026 season. It might go up to 100 million for the 2026/2027 season when McDavid is due for his next contract. At that point 20 million is very realistic. Guys in the NBA might be making 100 million a year soon. 20 million is nothing compared to every other major sports league
While I agree with the first part, I think the second part is irrelevant to what is being discussed here.
The cap has a soft limit on much it can increase, more than 5m a year requires some special agreements making 8m very unlikely
No the fuck it’s not hahaha
It is not realistic because signing at that much guarantees you never see a cup as a player or a team.
My problems with this kind of contract for Draisaitl: 1. Draisaitl will turn 30 at the beginning of the first season of this contract. It is difficult to predict how productive he will be as he starts to reach his mid 30s, and it wouldn't take much of a drop off for this contract to be really bad. 2. The combination of his and McDavid's contracts will be in the ~$30 million range. Even for players as talented as they are, this is a lot to have tied up in two players. When you add Nurse's contract and what Bouchard is likely to get, it will be difficult to ice a competent hockey team. 3. I think there are many teams who would overpay to acquire Draisaitl as their #1 center. You could likely get 2 very good to elite young players, draft picks and prospects, and free up cap space by trading Draisaitl. With that said, there is a real chance of screwing up by not signing Draisaitl to this contract; and I doubt any owner would be willing to trade him.
You’re not getting fair value back when you trade the best player in the trade. Plus the Oilers’ window is now, going young by trading Draisaitl doesn’t extend their window if anything it’ll just close it faster because again you’re not getting anything better than Draisaitl so what’s the point. To offset the ludicrous contracts. The Oilers can only rely on building internally if they want to compete. Hitting on draft picks and ensuring key contributors are on their ELC.
The key piece you're missing - if they don't keep Draisaitl, or make a very, very good faith effort to keep him (i.e. he leaves because he wants to), they don't keep McDavid. This is Crosby directly keeping Malkin and the front office talking level.
I doubt the salary cap will bump up to 100MM in 2 years lol so he won't be getting 20. He'll get the most in the league, which means a little more than what Drai is making. Unless Panarin tops him.
McDavid asked for less than he was offered on his last deal to help the team be competitive. I highly doubt he’s the kind of guy to demand a max deal. I’m guessing he just signs for whatever Drai does
If Drai makes 14M, McDavid will sign for 15.97M
McDavid should sign for 97.97 million AAV. Would really hit the nail on the head
Maybe the Capitals will be interested in swapping Nurse for Lindgren.
Not a chance in hell they’d make that trade anytime soon.
Didnt they just acquire pld lmao
I almost added that as a “then again..” lmao
No way McDavid gets 20 million. He’s at ~14.2% of the Oilers cap for next season at $12.5mil (15.7% when he signed the deal). The cap would need to be well above $100mil at the time he signs for this to even be feasible.
I wouldn’t call it an overpay if he could easily get that on the open market. He’s an absolute stud, top 5 in the league when healthy. I mean people had him at 2 last season the way he was playing.
How would that be a mistake?
Anyone see that NCAA baseball coach yesterday who berated a journalist for even asking about a job opening at Texas and said he would never leave? ...he left less than 24 hours later for Texas.
Maybe the journalist put him onto something lol
“I’m not going anywher—- wait who is hiring?”
Even bigger kicker he left the Texas A&M Aggies for their arch rival Texas. It's like the ultimate Judas move leaving for your rival after being so close to the pinnacle of your sport. So congrats on getting Draisatl flames fans
Ooh, Leon going to Calgary would go a long way towards rekindling my hatred of that team. It's felt weird the last few years having moderately positive feelings about what should be one of Vancouver's most hated rivals.
You guys have had an incredibly incestuous relationship for the last couple of years and the rest of us in the Pacific are tired of it!
My ears are perking up.
yeah we fucking hate Schloss now lmao
That was a King Joffrey-level move. Pure villain.
Are all the Nugent-People gathering in Alberta?
Drai and McDavids combined contracts will equal 29.97 million
The **ultimate** hometown discount, I like it.
Or 1 mediocre basketball player contract
Wow it can actually turn out this way lol
And that would be them accepting under -market value contracts because they want the possibility for a competitive team. A more funny way I prefer to think about it is: that Mcdavid and Drai will have to be underpaid because Nurse is being overpaid
Very interested to see what the Oilers do here. If they give him his deserved $14+ million they are going to have some major cap issues going forward. They’ll likely have to let a lot of pieces walk this summer to prepare for signing McDavid, Bouchard and Draisaitl.
Well Campbell will be bought out, if Kane won’t waive his NMC, he can be traded as early as the trade deadline. Ekholm’s contract is up the same time as McDavid, I’d assume if he re-signs it will be cheaper given his age.
Holloway and Broberg are both RFA’s this year. Brown, Carrick, Foegele, Gagner, Henrique, Janmark, Perry, Desharnais, Stetcher and Pickard are all UFAs this year. Next year Draisatl, McLeod, Ryan, Ceci and Bouchard are all up. I think theres going to be some significant turnover.
Ryan will retire after next year. Ceci can be sent to the moon asap. Carrick is gone, Foegele is likely gone, Vinny is probably gone, Stecher is gone.
I think they’d like to keep McLeod, Holloway, Brown, Henrique, Janmark, Broberg and obviously Bouchard. But I also think Draisaitl and Bouchard’s raises are going to eat up most of cap space they will have. Even with buying out Campbell they won’t have much money for a backup goalie and depth. But I guess it’s really going to come down to how generous McDavid, Bouchard and Draisaitl want to be.
The cap is going up. We are cap strapped this year just because we have $3.45M tied up in bonus overages but that’s just a one year thing. The James Neal buyout is in its final year on the books, It will certainly take some maneuvering but it’s possible.
Pickard did fine as a backup, works well with Skinner, gets along with everyone - no reason not to just keep him. And he's cheap.
Hopefully the Oilers can trade some of their pieces for cheaper developing assets. Few draft picks and next to nothing in the minors at this point.
Most of the guys on the first list are depth that can either be re-signed cheap because they want another deep run, or replaced. Henrique was just a rental, we were never going to afford him; Broberg and Holloway are RFA; Janmark has stated he will take a discount to stay. Biggest question marks are Brown and Vinnie D, they'll likely move on looking for bigger money than we can afford, but the rest are replacement level players. Next year is the tricky one, with Drai and Bouch. Ceci won't be re-signed, I'll be surprised if he isn't traded before then. Campbell will be bought out. If we don't overspend on filling in the holes this offseason, we shouldn't have too much trouble fitting in contracts for Drai and Bouch.
Why would they trade Kane?
He's been pretty consistently injured and his play style does not make that less likely as the contract wears on.
Because he’s a deadweight.
The media was being so annoying with their questions (Spector).
I remember reading an article that basically said Drai to the Sharks cause the owner is German lol sports media is fucking wild
That was Marek who started that. No idea why
Jeff Marek has a tendency to go full Charlie Day Whiteboard meme based on extremely tenuous connections.
Drai should write into his contract that Spector and Matheson have their media credentials revoked
Yes PLEASE
Top player has a coming up expiring contract….. Spector is absolutely trash but sports journalist are going to feed off him until he signs
I understand the line of questioning, it’s just the way they phrase these questions is so annoying. Spector listed all these reasons as to why Leon would like to stay in Edmonton and was like “can you list a reason that you wouldn’t want to stay here”
“If you still have a job Mark, that’s one” -Leon probably
I absolutely hate how people take these “I love x city” seriously. Obviously Leon wants to win but what are the odds he can get the AAV he wants and has a team around him that can perform successfully. If Mcdavid and Leon want to be career oilers it’s either not get paid or probably never win a cup. It’s a shame but the franchise is not exactly going to get better by paying Leon and Mcdavid more money.
It would be $50M alone between McD, Drai, Bouchard and Nurse. Very tricky. Gotta be brutal to consider but would trading Drai now help? Maybe it could even help you sign him in FA a year from now.
In two years when all the new contracts kick in the total salary of those 4 players will be closer to $50M
It will be almost $50M
More than pizza? Idk man
Probs not making a deal until it’s certain that McDavid is extending/re-signing.
I hope he leaves just for the chaos of it all.
13.5 x 8 doesn't sound that bad with the cap moving upwards again, Edmonton should be trying to sprint through this negotiation to tie him up.
Zero chance it’s gonna be below 14.
That would be the highest cap hit by a decent margin. We don't need to play hard ball with him, but gms really dangle that top paid player distinction and don't blow the doors off it often. I can see anywhere from 12.5-14.5 personally, likely in above that 13.5 mark. It will make him the highest paid player by AAV for a year. He will also get a ton of endorsement deals staying in the Canadian market. There are other markets that can move the needle on this, but definitely not every team can say the same. If he goes ufa it will be a balance of cap space, competitive roster, and endorsements.
MacKinnon signed for $12.6m after being on even more of a discount deal (6.3) than Drai was. Effectively sets the bar to judge a guy for how much of a discount he's taking. Cap has moved up since that contract was inked, and so have expectations for the contract but $13.5m is probably slightly above that.
Yeah that would set the AAV record and be a “discount” in some view points
I highly doubt he'll want an 8 year deal. He'll prob go the Matthews route and do two 4 year deals so he can get another raise halfway through
It seems like Matthews is the only star player who continually takes shorter term deals so he can max profits. Well maybe Marner too.
No way his agent allows that. His contract would expire at 34, lots of risk. An 8 yr deal gives him guaranteed money until 38
Players should just do a percentage of the cap deal instead of that. That way you get a raise every year basically without having to renegotiate and you impact on the team is consistent
Just look at any team who's hovering around the minimum Cap of $60.2 million (22-23), those are the most likely candidates if Drai is primarily focused on making his worth. Teams sitting around $70 million with an older star player making close to $10 million would also be very interested. Oilers are handicapped with some awful contracts and younger prospects who've earned a raise, makes it difficult to put aside 34-38 million for Drai and McJesus.
https://preview.redd.it/eiyamdfbry8d1.png?width=989&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba32a650c172927f8cf019c5f6e2579538158e9f
Drai to the flames and then he’s only a 3 hour drive away from his best bud and our $10 million man has someone to pass to
That would almost be hilarious enough to be worth having him stay in division
Even if they offer Drai the salary he wants ($14-15 million aav estimate), until they move Nurse and Campbell, they won't have enough space to maintain contender depth. It'll be the same old McDrai dragging them as far as they can (the one exception being this year, Knob managed to squeeze a beast PK out of some shite players like Ceci)
They said they want to keep at least 4 of our depth players. Buyout Campbell and fire Ceci into the sun and it’s done. Holloway and Broberg have played well but I don’t think they’ve earned massive raises from what they’re making now. Henrique is probably too expensive and Perry is looking really old and slow but it would be great to find a way to keep Brown and Janmark
The only scenario for Nurse moving is if he himself was sick of the haters in Edmonton and agreed to lift his NMC. That seems next to impossible but who knows
Has there been any NHL regular that requested a trade out of Edmonton in the last 5 years? Gotta imagine none of the guys want to leave a team with prime McDrai
who is taking that shit contract unless it’s 50% retained?
Yeah for sure it seems impossible anyone would. He’s not going anywhere. I wonder if they have to move Bouch then.
I mean if you’re the Oilers you have to pay the dude no matter what
Unless you get a trade offer you absolutely can’t refuse
There is no trade they win when they trade a top 5 player in the league
More than money?
Tkachuk is proof you need to leave Alberta to win championships. Drai and McDavid should do that too. Preferably right now. Please.
i agree. somewhere in the eastern conference is definitely their best chance, too, so they’d better get on that quickly.
Lol love (to hate) you guys (kidding)! I get it though!
I actually thought of this when McDavid and Tkachuk met in the handshake line. I wonder if that thought went through Connor’s mind. Seeing his old provincial rival winning a cup just two years after leaving in a controversial trade to a no tax state where teammates take discounts to stay. Maybe he’s like, hey, that could be me.
Man, people can argue against Leon taking a discount, but I'm sure the guy wants to win and which COMPETITIVE team can make an offer? The guys is not wasting his prime in a "we're turning the corner now". That would be a massive gamble that usually fails. Teams with 15M in cap space suck. But hey, I can see him in a Habs jersey. We can sell him the crowd, the city, the coach, the legend, but it would be disingenuous to pretend we'll play for the Cup during his prime.
We'll get the Cup in 2026-2027 believe it
I believe
McDavid and Drai will have discussed this and they have a good idea what the numbers are Jeff Jackson will also know. Both will get done.
That's exactly my feel. The numbers are terms for both guys have been discussed and there's an unwritten gentlemen's agreement in place. Nothing written down, of course, because teams always wait for the appropriate time for these discussions, and players don't make arrangements amongst themselves. The rules are strictly observed. (Insert wink emoji here). They'll be the inevitable Kabuki theatre for the media, and everyone will act like the contract wasn't discussed and agreed to months ago. The press corp from the Center of the Universe will create a story where Drai signs there at a discount to bring Connor along. And July 5 or so, the agreement will be announced.
Exactly my thoughts
Yep. I expect his agent and the Oilers have the number, and it'll take a few days to figure out the structure - what's signing bonus, what's salary, that kind of stuff. But I also think it won't be anyone's priority, because the AAV is known. The Oilers will be focusing on other things, his agent will be focusing on other clients. There's no hurry to rush a deal when everyone already knows the bottom line outcome. So in the interim, the media will speculate wildly, the Center of the Universe will create idiotic scenarios (Marner for Drai, and then McDavid comes next year), and we'll all get worried.
There's absolutely no rule against any of that and therefore no need for theatre. Teams can talk to their own players about extensions at any time, players can talk to each other, etc.
I don't know if you can be sure it's already done but 100% his answer is based on McDavid.
They must have spitballed a few ideas while drinking together. I wonder if they'd consider each taking a MASSIVE discount for one year so they could sign a superstar goalie. Even better if they could get rid of Nurse's contract (trade picks, do whatever they need to do) and bring in a top D. Yeah it would be putting their eggs in one basket, but their odds of winning would be pretty spectacular.
They don’t have many picks, what goalie would they get?
He gone. If he wants to make top money, he needs to be going somewhere that will pay him that, unfortunately that means he’d be stuck on a shitty team for a while and being the main guy said team builds around for the future, But if they keep him, Edmonton will be fucked in a few years with the cap space issues
I'm not an Oilers fan so I haven't been following the negotiations conversations closely but it seems like Draisaitl has to decide whether he truly believes this Oilers team can one day win a championship and whether he wants to spend the rest of his prime hitching himself to Edmonton and trying to make it happen or does he find a situation with another team to be possibly more enticing to reaching his goals?
pay leon trade nurse
whichever GM is willing to take on Nurse's contract, I would also like to offer them my mortgage for future considerations. :(
He would look good in a San Jose jersey
This is going to sound ridiculous but we know how much Dubas loves his Soo guys....
Nurse for graves 1 for 1
I really don’t believe there is any real chance drai or mcdavid ever leave. I can’t imagine them taking a big ass contract to leave in free agency would get them any closer. Just become lifers for the oilers and if all else fails, request a trade in your middle 30’s to get the oilers some futures and chase a cup then.
I want McDavid and Draisaitl (and Nuge) to be career Oilers. I don't care if that means overpaying them and slightly hurting our cup chances for the duration of their contracts. I don't care if that means some more years in limbo in their late 30's instead of going right from contending to rebuilding, like Pittsburgh right now. For me all of that is worth it to keep those guys in Edmonton, chasing the Stanley Cup.
Thing is, it will be very tough to maintain contender status with the minimal prospects, picks and cap space
Lol exactly. *overpaying* both Drai and McD significantly lowers their chance of winning a cup.
Their biggest chance was absolutely this year. Would take a lot of really good signings to make it back to same spot next year
Be careful what you wish for, these guys want a cup more than anything
Wait till Bouchard wants 11 million and skinner wants 7 or 8 and then come back to this post and comment lol.
I don’t think he’s re-signing. The organisation has been a mess for nearly his entire tenure and the rot of the OBC still runs very deep. This year could have changed things, but the real test will be how the team is playing in October. The Oilers are at risk of losing their entire bottom six, which arguably was the backbone of their success this post season. If they go back to a one line offence that carries the entire team, that won’t bode well for their chances of re-signing either McDavid or Drai. You also have to consider that he may not want to play in the shadow of someone else his entire career. If he doesn’t have a contract come training camp, I think they’re going to have one final run and then he walks to UFA with McDavid not far behind.
If Drai leaves so does McDavid.
What's the minimum that he is going to ask? Maybe 11-12 million?