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Greg Wyshynski, ESPNSep 3, 2024, 03:35 PM ET
- Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.
Edmonton Oilers star Leon Draisaitl has signed an eight-year contract extension worth $112 million. Its $14 million average annual value should give Draisaitl the highest individual salary cap hit in NHL history when the contract kicks in for the 2025-26 season.
As always, there are ripples and repercussions with any blockbuster contract. Who won big? Who came up short? Here’s how the Draisaitl deal impacts the NHL.
Winner: Edmonton Oilers
The rest of the hockey world has been counting down the days until Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl or both would follow in the skate shavings of Wayne Gretzky as the next megastars to leave Edmonton for “the big market.”
Instead, Oilers fans are lapping up those tears of disappointment as they watch Draisaitl commit to the team through 2033 — with the expectation that a McDavid extension is in the cards as well.
Obviously, it’s not just about the money, because Draisaitl could find more of it on the open market. So the Oilers can take a measure of pride that the organization itself compelled Draisaitl to forego free agency. That speaks to everything from the ownership to the facilities to the people working on and off the ice. But more than anything, it speaks to the fact that Draisaitl believes he can compete for a Stanley Cup for several seasons in Edmonton. That’s a heck of an endorsement.
Word around Edmonton during the playoffs was that $14 million AAV was exactly where they expected a Draisaitl extension would and should land. It sets them up for McDavid’s next deal and a blockbuster contract for top offensive defenseman Evan Bouchard before next summer. That’s the holy trinity of hockey talent you need to win a Cup — two great centers and a No. 1 defenseman — and Edmonton’s version of it is almost unparalleled.
Welp, there goes that theory. There had been scuttlebutt about mutual admiration between Draisaitl and the Boston Bruins. Draisaitl was reportedly desirous to play in a major NHL market. The Bruins had a donut of a roster after losing Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. Boston president Cam Neely has a type, and Draisaitl is very much that type.
The speculation grew so loud that Boston media were wondering if Draisaitl’s potential availability in 2025 might impact the Bruins’ 2024 offseason transactions. Boston ended up signing Elias Lindholm to a seven-year contract ($7.75 million AAV) as a solution, if not the same level of solution that Draisaitl would have been.
Winner: Connor McDavid
Before last season, McDavid was asked about trying to win a Stanley Cup with Draisaitl, and why that’s a bit different than just trying to win the Cup in general.
“Leo and I have been here our whole careers. We’ve been through some bad years. Some disappointments,” he said. “But at the same time, I look at the culture that we built here. Where the organization sits today, and I take a lot of pride in that. Our core here has built something, really from the ground up. We take a lot of pride in that. To see it through with the people that have been here the whole time, that’s what it’s about.”
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They both want to win. They both believe their chances to do so are at their greatest if they remained teammates.
The notion that Draisaitl would have signed an extension without some nod from Connor that he’d stick around is naïve.
The odds that McDavid would have remained with the Oilers had Draisaitl left as a free agent were slim. McDavid might be able to coax someone to play with him in Edmonton if Draisaitl left. But good luck finding another player who can win a regular-season scoring title and tally 108 points in 74 playoff games.
They’ve put down some roots in Edmonton, both personally and professionally. They’ve grown up there. Like McDavid said, they’ve built a culture with this team that had them one win away from hoisting the Stanley Cup last season. And they want to see it through together.
Welp, there goes that theory, part deux. Draisaitl is a hockey deity in Germany, quickly become the highest-scoring German player in NHL history. (There have been 35 German skaters in the NHL, for the record.) Hasso Plattner is the German-born owner of the San Jose Sharks, a team that has fallen off sharply from its years as a Stanley Cup contender but is finally on the upswing thanks to its young talent.
So, theoretically, could the German owner break the bank for the German superstar to become the flag-bearer for his franchise, just as Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith arrive on the scene? Especially when we’re talking about the absolutely lovely Bay Area, which is very much not Edmonton? It was plausible enough that the theory entered the NHL echo chamber over the last year.
But clearly, it wasn’t anything Draisaitl was interested in pursuing at the moment.
Will Smith and Macklin Celebrini, center, are the nucleus of a promising youth movement in San Jose — one that would certainly have been boosted by the addition of Leon Draisaitl. Kavin Mistry/NHLI via Getty Images
Winner: Ken Holland
The worst-kept secret after the Stanley Cup Final was that Ken Holland’s time in Edmonton was over. It took only three days after Game 7 for the inevitable to be confirmed, with Stan Bowman — who resigned from the Chicago Blackhawks in 2021 — taking over as general manager.
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Work on Draisaitl’s contract predated Bowman’s arrival, even if it was signed on his watch. But it was Holland who helped get the Oilers’ house in order to set up the franchise for these critical contracts.
Look, Holland wasn’t without his glaring mistakes. His salary cap management would leave the Oilers handcuffed or shorthanded on an annual basis. But his contract wins (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman) balanced out the things like that Darnell Nurse overpayment. The Oilers were within a win of hoisting the Cup with a Ken Holland roster, thanks to acquired players such as Mattias Ekholm, Brett Kulak and others.
It’s fair to question whether another general manager would have already delivered championship hardware to McDavid and Draisaitl, and Bowman will test that theory. But there was a time not long ago when Edmonton was a shambolic mess of a team, one that made it hard to envision Draisaitl or McDavid committing on another long-term deal. Holland did enough to set the team on the right path and set up the McDavid and Draisaitl duo for a future to their liking.
Loser: The NHL
Here’s the section that’s going to irk Oilers fans the most, but let’s be real: Draisaitl re-signing means it’s likely that two of the top five players in the NHL could be tethered to Alberta through 2033.
Not New York or Chicago. Not Boston or Detroit. Not Toronto. Not Los Angeles. Edmonton.
It’s not just about the city in which they play. It’s having two megastars on the same team in that city, rather than anchoring their own rosters among the league’s other 31 (for now) teams.
The counterpoint, and it’s an effective one, is that having McDavid and Draisaitl on the same roster makes Edmonton a glamour franchise, and is more meaningful to the NHL than having them lead two different franchises. It’s the point Oilers fans have made for years. It’s a point they’ll happily continue to make now that Leon has put pen to paper, assuming McDavid is already practicing his signature.
So who gets the next big contract?
Whenever someone resets the bar for average annual value, there’s a ripple effect for the next few players who are up for blockbuster extensions.
In the free agent class of 2025, those players include:
Mikko Rantanen, Colorado Avalanche. He’s fifth in goals (133) during the past three seasons, and tied for seventh in points per game (1.27) in the same span. The 27-year-old forward currently makes $9.25 million AAV, and is in the last year of his contract. Is the $12.6 million AAV that Nathan MacKinnon makes on his cap-friendly deal the ceiling for a Colorado player? It better not be, because Draisaitl’s deal sets up Rantanen for a huge payday in Denver or elsewhere, with unrestricted free agency looming next summer.
Mitch Marner, Toronto Maple Leafs. Like Rantanen, Marner was tied for seventh in points per game (1.27) over the past three seasons. And like Rantanen, the internal salary cap metrics of his current team are as influential to this next contract as anything Draisaitl is making on his next deal. Auston Matthews has a deal that’s worth $13.25 million AAV, the previous high-water mark of the salary cap era before Draisaitl’s contract. William Nylander makes $11.5 million AAV on his eight-year deal signed in January. Does Marner fall in between those two contracts, or does he believe he could get closer to Draisaitl’s value on the open market?
Mikko Rantanen could set a new standard as the NHL’s highest-paid player on his next deal. Ric Tapia/Icon Sportswire
PuckPedia makes the point that the continued growth of the NHL salary cap — which is up to $88 million this season — recontextualizes recent contracts. The equivalent of Matthews’ cap hit with a 5% growth in the cap is $13.91 million, or basically Draisaitl’s average annual value starting in 2025-26.
Beyond next season, the biggest influence of the Draisaitl deal is on Bouchard and McDavid. Is it possible that the Oilers could get all three under contract for $40 million per year or less? Draisaitl’s contract certainly makes that possible, if not plausible.
But in the case of Draisaitl, Matthews, MacKinnon and McDavid, their current contracts are for re-signing with their current teams. This is yet another NHL player, in his prime, who doesn’t hit the open market and have a bidding war inflate his contract numbers to ridiculous proportions. Which is great for team economics but not so much for salary inflation — or our own offseason entertainment.
