$97M FOR MCDAVID?
Oilers facing huge outlay
At present, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are the National Hockey League’s salary cap-hit kings at $10.5 million a season in Chicago.
But what will Connor McDavid, who’s in a three-headed dogfight with Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby and San Jose’s Brent Burns for the Hart Trophy as League Most Valuable Player this year, get in his new deal, which would kick in 2018?
Here’s an ideal number: eight years, $97 million.
Now, the rules say a team can pay a player up to 20 per cent of its salary cap, which means McDavid could get $14 million at the current $70-million cap ceiling. But he wants to win — not so much at the bargaining table but on the ice, and if he takes less, that means there more for the rest of the Edmonton Oilers.
Nobody’s saying he’d take a hometown discount, but ...
The eight-year term is a given. That’s the max anybody can get. The $97 million would fit with his jersey number.
Like Sidney Crosby’s cap hit of $8.7 million a year in Pittsburgh.
Eight into 97 is $12.2-million in a cap hit per year for McDavid.
Obviously, Toews and Kane have done more than McDavid. The pair has won three Stanley Cups in Chicago. But McDavid could win the Hart this year. It’s really between Crosby and No. 97, with Burns refusing to go away with the Sharks.
The Oilers also have to re-sign Leon Draisaitl after this season. What do they give him?
Do they see if he’ll take a bridge deal for a couple of years like Artemi Panarin in Chicago, where he signed for $6 million per season because of their major salary-cap squeeze?
The Oilers bequeathed $6 million a year for seven years each on Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and $6 million for six seasons on Jordan Eberle right out of their entrylevel contracts, which in hindsight was a mistake with RNH, judging by his production the last two years (60 points in 112 games). Eberle is probably more in the $5-million range judging from his stats. Hall is worth the salary.
Milan Lucic also makes $6 million per season, but he is staying put. It’s safe to say either Eberle or Nugent-Hopkins will be traded this summer to free up money for McDavid and Draisaitl, or to get a player (a defenceman?) at a different position.
The Oilers are well-placed on the back-end with Andrej Sekera at $5.5M, Adam Larsson and Oscar Klefbom at $4.16M, but they are top heavy in salaries up front. Even if Draisaitl were to take $5 million a year in a two-year bridge deal, that’s still squeezing the salary-cap pot.
But McDavid will get what he wants.
If I’m Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli, I pursue goalie Jaroslav Halak, buried on the Islanders farm, as a security blanket for Cam Talbot even if he has another year at a $4.5-million cap hit. The Isles would eat some of that contract to dump it and the Oilers can leave Halak exposed in the expansion draft or try to trade him at the draft. He’s a starter, not an NHL backup.
Ex-Oilers defenceman and current Blackhawks assistant GM Norm Maciver, who was Dave Manson’s Oilers blue-line partner, remembers his last days as an Oiler before the expansion Senators claimed him on waivers in their first NHL season. It was over a contract dispute. “I wanted $300,000 and Glen (Sather) said he’d only give me $285,000. Dave was making $1 million. Glen sent a fax to my agent saying ‘hope he has a good pro golf career.” Maciver can laugh about it today, but playing for the Senators in their first year was no chuckle. “We beat Montreal in our first game, and I think we lost the next 18. We saw the backup goalie 82 times, I think,” Maciver said.
Carolina needs forwards and they have arguably the deepest group of young defencemen. If you talk to pro scouts, the one untouchable would be Jaccob Slavin at a princely $742,000 more than Justin Faulk at $4.8 million because Slavin is an excellent shutdown type D in the Marc-Edouard Vlasic mould. They have Noah Hanifin on their roster and Jake Bean coming, and Faulk would fetch a good player.
Most people figure Tampa will trade restricted free-agent Tyler Johnson this summer because they can plug Brayden Point into his centre slot. Lightning will resign Ondrej Palat instead but need defencemen in any deal for Johnson.
We know the Bruins want Kevin Shattenkirk from the Blues but the Bruins are not the least bit interested in trading younger defencemen Brandon Carlo or Charlie McAvoy to get him.
Excellent job by Sherwood Park’s Sam Steel, who has 102 points this year with the WHL’s Regina Pats. The Anaheim Ducks drafted him in the first round last June.
The Tri-City Americans tried very hard to trade for Oilers prospect Tyler Benson at the WHL trade deadline, figuring he could play the wing with six-footfive centre Michael Rasmussen, who could go in the top eight in this June’s draft even knowing he’s hurt (suspected groin/hernia), but the Vancouver Giants said no.
Brad MacGregor’s son Bruce, a bantam triple-A C from Sherwood Park, is on Tri-City Americans’ negotiation list and is very highly rated. He’s named after Brad’s dad Bruce, of course.