Eight-year term for Evan Bouchard was ‘never in the cards’

For as much as those in the Edmonton market wanted to see the Oilers lock up Evan Bouchard to a long-term contract, it was something that was never going to happen.

Oilers general manager Stan Bowman spoke to the media for the first time since Bouchard signed his four-year, $10.5 million AAV extension on Wednesday, where he talked about the negotiations.

That was an important signing. We haven’t talked about that yet, but you know, Bouch had a tremendous season, a tremendous couple seasons. He’s emerged as a very important player on our team. So getting him signed was critical. I guess the negotiations, you know, an eight year term was really never in the cards. The agent indicated that that wasn’t something they thought made sense for them with. I think it’s really a function of salary cap and where that’s going. We certainly know the next three years it’s going up considerable amounts. We do know what those numbers are and I think we don’t know where it’s going beyond that. But there’s a, you know, a projection that it could continue to rise.

A number for an eight-year deal would be so high that it wouldn’t really make sense for anybody. We certainly were hoping to do an eight year deal, but that was never really in the cards. So I think on that side it’s the deals get made when the two sides meet at something they’re both comfortable with. So they were never interested in pursuing eight years. So you know, at that point it’s not like we can force them to do it. We have to try to still get a deal done, and after some back and forth, we finally got there.

It’s no surprise that Bouchard and his agent, Dave Gagner, had no interest in an eight-year contract. As Bowman highlighted, the NHL’s salary cap is set to rise roughly 18 percent over the next three years, from $95.5 million this year to $113.5 million in 2027-28. And after that, it’s expected to continue to climb. The impending jumps will mark the largest of the NHL’s salary cap era, which began after the 2004-05 lockout that saw the whole season lost.

Nonetheless, Bouchard has evolved into one of the league’s premier offensive defencemen, and getting him locked up was incredibly important for the team.

He’s racked up 52 goals and 232 points in 326 games over his four full seasons in the league, adding 20 goals and 81 points in 75 playoff games. His 1.08 points-per-game mark is tied for the best among all defencemen with 75 or more playoff games, with Brian Leetch, who scored 28 goals and 97 points in 95 playoff games, and Paul Coffey, with 59 goals and 196 points in 194 games, being the only two others with over a point-per-game. Of the four, Bouchard has .81 assists per game, the highest mark.