McDavid’s eight-year, $100M deal (that could have been higher)
The young star may have left money on the table but, at an average income of $12.5M per year, this was a win-win. Now the hard part: Lead the Oilers to the Cup.
In the National Hockey League’s salary cap era, now 12 years on, only seven general managers have massaged the numbers well enough to produce a Stanley Cup winner.
One of them, Peter Chiarelli, just committed US$ 100 million to fuzzy-cheeked phenom Connor McDavid on an eight- year extension of his entry level deal. The Oilers captain will haul in an average of $ 12.5 million per year, the bulk of it in signing bonuses, after next season.
That’s crazy money. It comes with intense pressure to lead the Oilers to a Stanley Cup. Or two. And soonish.
But Chiarelli and t he Oilers know they have a bankable star whose character and commitment to winning, to his teammates and to Edmonton cannot be questioned. Though the team still managed to break the bank for McDavid, it was said more than once on Wednesday that the kid left money on the table, with which Chiarelli can maintain a supporting cast.
“This may have been one of the largest contracts ever given in the NHL, but I can assure you it easily could have been a lot higher in value and shorter in term,” said Chiarelli. “Building a team to win the Stanley Cup was a constant in the discussion.”
Chiarelli also talked about the partnership that grows from and must be part of a process this rich and public. Both sides had to benefit, and be seen to do so. McDavid got paid an insane amount of money, the Oilers locked him up for the maximum allowable eight years, which eats into potential unrestricted free agency and stabilizes the franchise for almost an entire decade. Win, win. Now the hard part. There is incredible pressure to perform, to lead and to win built into a deal like this one. For any player, never mind a 20-year-old.
“For sure there is,” said McDavid. “But for me, it just makes me want to be better and work harder. You want to earn that money. You don’t want to be someone who signs a deal and kind of shuts it down. That’s not going to be me at all. It’s only driving me more.”
That’s his promise. That’s why the Oilers made him captain. That’s why they are comfortable at this number. Unlike other older players who reside in this new financial stratosphere, McDavid is being paid more for that promise than past performance. He’s played just 127 regular season games, 13 in the playoffs. There isn’t a Stanley Cup or Conn Smythe to accompany the Hart Memorial, Art Ross and Ted Lindsay. But you get the impression those too are coming.
It was character and commitment, promise and performance that made it so easy for the two sides to come to terms. In fact, McDavid’s agent Jeff Jackson called it a “very logical” discussion, not so much a negotiation, with Chiarelli.
“It was more just a lot of dialogue about how the team is going to evolve and where Connor fit,” said Jackson. “I won’t get into numbers but we started a ways apart and talked about the guys in the league who are currently being paid at the high end and where they are in their careers. They signed those deals later, in their 20s, that kind of thing. It was a very interesting process, probably unlike any other type of negotiation like this. We got to the number we got to because that’s where everybody was comfortable.”
That number, $ 100 million, is almost triple the Gross Domestic Product of Tuvalu, a Polynesian island nation that McDavid could probably buy with his signing bonus. (I wouldn’t advise it; too hard to get practice ice.)
The July 1 Powerball jackpot was $ 106 million. McDavid probably didn’t even buy a ticket. That’s the kind of money we’re talking about.
“It’s insane to really think about, to think someone is going to pay me $ 100 million to do what I would do anyway on a regular day,” he said. “It’s insane.”
A little later in the conversation, after being asked again about leaving money on the table so Chiarelli can build a winner, McDavid talked about the two competing aims that had to be addressed financially.
“You know what, you only get one career. You need to make the most of it. Any player will tell you that. You need to take care of yourself, look after yourself and your family. ... At the same time, you want to win.”
Sidney Crosby has done both in Pittsburgh more than once. But he didn’t do it alone. The Penguins paid him handsomely and still made sure they had enough cash lying around for Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Kris Letang and a couple of No. 1 goalies, not to mention the spare parts and depth defencemen who are crucial to every Stanley Cup run.
Chiarelli, who built a Cup winner in Boston around Zdeno Chara, Milan Lucic and Patrice Bergeron, locked up Edmonton’s prized centrepiece for most of a decade and believes he preserved the cap space necessary to maintain a quality supporting cast.
That’s why he and McDavid were both smiling on Wednesday.