There was some significant news on Tuesday, as the Edmonton Oilers locked up Leon Draisaitl to an eight-year contract worth $14 million annually.
The contract makes Draisaitl the NHL’s highest-paid player annually and keeps him in Edmonton through his age 37 season. We broke down the contract earlier today and forecasted the next orders of business for the Oilers, with an emphasis on navigating the next contracts that Evan Bouchard (2025) and Connor McDavid (2026) will command. That’s down the road, though, and it’s not impossible for the Oilers to remain competitive despite these hefty price tags (not to mention Darnell Nurse at $9.25 million until 2030).
Oilers fans almost unanimously love the deal, and why wouldn’t they? A homegrown star player is essentially choosing to spend the rest of his career in Edmonton with a clear goal of winning the Stanley Cup.
But what do Vancouver Canucks fans think of the extension? We scoured the internet to find out.
This isn’t quite What Do You Think Thursday, but the CanucksArmy comment section had some strong opinions on the deal.
Beer Can Boyd: 14 million per year at age 38. That should age well. Oilers are quickly becoming Leaves west, especially after Bouchard gets his 10 million per.
Crofton: 14 million per year at age 38. That should age well. Oilers are quickly becoming Leaves west, especially after Bouchard gets his 10 million per.
Cageyvet: Oilers fans are busy justifying this by saying he was underpaid before and he’s worth this contract. Not that they’re wrong, but they were all drinking the Koolaid before about how he was going to take a discount to stay with the Oilers. Now they all say “no discount but that’s ok”. Well, it’s ok if you want more cap challenges. It’s not like they have a lot of choice, as they were unlikely to get value back if they traded him, but there was some serious delusion going on in Edmonton that may be correcting itself. They really thought their young kids were going to play for 1 million a year on multi-year contracts, and that their superstars were going to leave 10-20 million on the table to stay in Edmonton. Welcome to reality.
RagnarokOroboros: Feels like a gross overpayment. If it was for 4 years that would be palatable, but there is no way he will be competing at this level until he is 38.
The back end of that contract is going to burn them down the road.
defenceman factory: Hard to argue Draisaidl doesn’t deserve this contract. He has been incredible for the Oilers. There is a statement in the article which says the Oilers competitive window stays open as long as Draisaidl and McDavid are together. That’s likely true for a few years however the start of this new contract signals the end of the Oilers window of contention. The size of McDavid’s next contract will slam that window shut. Those two could remain good players well into their 30’s but the magnitude of their contracts just don’t leave enough room for a contending roster around them. At age 35 those two will still take up 30% of the cap. Purging the Nurse contract is now more urgent and absolutely essential to icing a competitive team. The Oilers were true contenders last season and should be again this season. This is the peak. The precedents for my pessimism are clear. The aging core of the Penguins are still very good players but very few would consider the Pens to be Stanley Cup contenders. They have had to shed too much of their supporting cast. Kyle Dumbass and his moronic acquisition of Karlsson sure didn’t help. The same can be said of the Blackhawks. They haven’t won a playoff series since giving Kane and Toews matching 10.5 mil contracts. At the time those 2 contracts combined to represent about 28% of the cap. There is a bit of a precautionary tale for the Canucks here. With the expected cap growth and size of Hughes next contract it is highly unlikely the 2 largest AAVs on the Canucks will ever approach 30% of the cap.
Wilson: I’m sure I’m echoing others, but my first thought was -“wow, Pettersson’s contract has the potential to age really well.” That’s all dependent on him getting back to form of course, but if he does then $2.4 M less a year and three years younger than Draisaitl? Not looking too bad.
As usual, the commenters didn’t disappoint! Now to Twitter…
No Oilers fans, Scott is not saying that JT Miller is a better player than Leon Draisaitl.
As our own Jeff Paterson tweeted out shortly after the deal… 20 goals a year from that ridiculous angle just above the goal line through 2033.
I once had an NHL executive say to me “when you’re a Canadian team, there’s no such thing as overpaying for a star player.” I don’t know how much I agree, but I understand where he was coming from.
And that is a world Canucks fans want to live in.
