Could the Edmonton Oilers Break the Salary Cap Trend with Four Players Taking Up Most of the Money?
In the NHL, winning the Stanley Cup with three or four guys taking up most of the salary cap is hard. However, that could change with the Edmonton Oilers as the salary cap is projected to increase.
Leon Draisaitl signed his new eight-year, $112 million extension, carrying an AAV of $14 million. We know Connor McDavid will get whatever he wants but also wants to win. So combined, let’s say they make $30 million or more.
NHL Rumors: Expect Evan Bouchard to Stay with the Edmonton Oilers
Add in Darnell Nurse at $9.25 million and potentially Evan Bouchard at that number or more. For argument’s sake, $10 million is close to $50 million between four players. Then throw in Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Evander Kane, and others, and the Oilers have the depth teams dream over.
CEO Jeff Jackson and GM Stan Bowman are using the model built around McDavid, Draisaitl, and Bouchard, with other players wanting to come to Edmonton on budget deals to play and win with two of the best players in the world.
Can a team win the Stanley Cup with more than half their cap being eaten up by four players? That is the item Gino Reda and Frankie Corrado tackle on the latest edition of TSN’s That’s Hockey.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
NHL News: The Edmonton Oilers Extend Leon Draisaitl for Eight Years
Gino Reda: “But can you win there if you lock up approximately 30% of your cap on just two guys?”
Frankie Corrado: “That’s a good question, because there’s one team that is in Canada that hasn’t been able to do that with all their money tied up in four players. But it’s different with the Edmonton Oilers.
You know why those two guys, McDavid and Draisaitl they do it in the playoffs. They are very good. Last year, both of those guys combined for 73 points over the course of that playoff run. That is pretty spectacular.
And the other thing we just saw when, in 2019, the salary cap was what, 79 and a half million. It went up to 81 and a half in the year 2022. It just didn’t move. If it actually moves this time around, then, yeah, you can say that you can test that theory and say that you can actually win with more money tied up in fewer players, but the cap has to move.”
Reda: “Evan Bouchard, he’s going to be looking at what 10.”
Corrado: “Well, so now you’re going to have a compelling case.”
Reda: “Okay, so if he gets $10 (million), and you’ve already given away $30 (million), but the other two now you’re looking at half your cap on three guys.”
Corrado: “And don’t forget, makes $9.25 million, so you still have to remember that that’s money that’s already on your books.”
Edmonton Oilers Had No Choice To Pay Leon Draisaitl To Keep Him
Again, since COVID-19, the NHL has lived in a flat-cap world. With new revenues coming into the league, the new Canadian TV deal, and other forms of revenue, the salary cap will go up.
Remember when the Toronto Maple Leafs Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander, the expectation was the cap was going to go up. It did not, and they suffered because of it. Similar to the San Jose, who were top-heavy on the back end with Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic. The cap did not move.
The Maple Leafs were sacrificing essential areas of need because they were on a budget. However, the Oilers proved they could win in the playoffs with this model. They were one win away this year, losing to the Florida Panthers in Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final.
Are the Edmonton Oilers a Better Team This Season?
They had been to the Conference Final in 2022. Not to mention, the Oilers had lost to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion three straight years. Plus, guys want to play in Edmonton now. I’m not saying nobody wants to play with Matthews and Marner, but Edmonton has proven they can win. Toronto has not.
When Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews‘s new deals kicked in in 2015, the Blackhawks did not win again. The Tampa Bay Lightning are seeing the same thing: Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Brayden Point are eating a ton of cap space and were unable to win. The list goes on.
However, with salaries going up and the cap continuing to rise, we expect to eventually see a team win a Stanley Cup with three or four players eating up most of the salary cap.