How the Edmonton Oilers can afford the big three of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisail and Evan Bouchard

How the Edmonton Oilers can afford the big three of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisail and Evan Bouchard

if you’re like me and needed to take intro to statistics in college twice today’s episode might be a little bit dense on today’s edition of Locked on Oilers we’re going to talk about how the Oilers make Conor McDavid Leon Dryidle and Evan Bousard’s contracts work into the future and stay Stanley Cup contenders long term [Music] you are Locked On Oilers your daily podcast on the Edmonton Oilers part of the Locked On podcast network your team every day hello everyone and welcome to this Thursday edition of Locked On Oilers i am your host Nick Serars just wrapped up my second Stanley Cup playoff run as host of Locked on Oilers and I want to thank everyone that is making locked on Oilers their first listen of the day locked on Oilers is a part of the Lockdown Podcast Network your team every day on today’s show like we talked about yesterday teased yesterday we’re going to break down the math because the hardest part of being a Stanley Cup contender is staying one long term and entering a new economic landscape like the NHL at large is over the next few seasons the numbers are going to get very big very fast so on today’s show we are going to start out with the basics the nebulous ideas that make up contemporary NHL roster construction theory what you need what you want how to go about putting it all together in our second segment we’re going to pivot to talking directly about the numbers how much each Connor Leon and Evan Buchard will likely make what that number comes out to together we will account for the supplementary pieces who were under contract for several years in the future like Zack Heyman Ryan Nent Hopkins and Darnell Nurse we will compare it to the other big ticket team of this era the Toronto Maple Leafs how much they paid for their stars relative to the cap and then we’ll f we’ll tie a bow on today’s show talking about the archetypes the Oilers are going to need to supplement their superstars and starting out there the big idea the hardest thing for an NHL team to do is to stay competitive long term and I have said on more than one occasion over the last week and a half since the Oilers lost in the final the hardest thing for an NHL team to do is go from contender to champion there are a number of teams I can name off the top of my head that were consistent playoff teams for half a decade a full decade and never ultimately captured a championship made a cup final maybe two bunch of conference finals tons of really good players maybe even a Hall of Famer or two you know Joe Thornton got into the Hall of Fame on Wednesday on uh Tuesday afternoon and because of that you think about those Sharks teams that obviously the most pressing of that group where they tried a bunch of different things they had Jumbo they had Pavvelski Logan Couture Burns Primark Edward Vlic those Sharks teams were tremendously deep they had multiple future Hall of Famers and they never got over the hump you think about the New York Rangers of the 2010s with Henrik Lungquist and Ryan Mcdana a number of really good guys like Henrik Lungquist who’s in the Hall of Fame some fringe guys like a Marty St louis I know he got in as a member of the Lightning but generally speaking you think about the two years he was on the Rangers rick Nash somebody if he had stayed healthy maybe in the conversation but you can be a really good team and just never have the cards line up for you getting over that hump is borderline impossible and it’s what makes this process both challenging but rewarding it’s the best trophy in all of sports because it’s the hardest one to win because the variance is so high because the playoff environments are so unique all you need is a hot goalie twice in a series and even if the other team has you outgunned you can steal two and you get through to the next round and then everything resets maybe in the next round you have the better goalie than the team you’re playing so with that in mind starting out talking about the big picture we know good teams find ways to keep their best players it’s why throughout the early part of this week we talked about how do the Oilers keep Connor why he’s not leaving we pivoted to talking about Evan Bousard on Wednesday and today we’re talking about why that is your baseline you look around the NHL right now and if we’re going to start the conversation for who’s going to be a Stanley Cup contender next year where does the conversation start edmonton Florida Dallas Carolina I suppose Vegas what do all those teams have in common really stable cores really wellestablished cores with proven track records of success florida getting to run back Barov Rey Hart assuming Sam Bennett Matthew Kachchuck you run back Forsling Babrovski and then everything else around those guys supporting cast if we’re talking about Dallas Rope Hints Miko Rantin Thomas Harley Jakeer Miro Heiskinan and then you get to the secondary pieces you bring back Matt Duchain matt Duchain I wouldn’t qualify as a core player but Dallas saw something there that they wanted to bring back you talk about Vegas Eel Stone Petrangelo Sheay Theodore a really strong baseline and then they fill out that supporting cast carolina you talk about Aaho Fetchnikov Slavven really strong foundational group and that’s the key here you need that baseline to give your team a pulse without that high-end talent and I know I don’t often put Carolina in the sentence as high-end talent but relative to some of the contemporaries the teams you’re going to play in the regular season I think we often make the mistake of talking about teams in the context of the playoffs a little too much when we have an 82game regular season even though the regular season is kind of devalued deincentivized based on this playoff format where you’re going to end up playing division games and we know the value of home ice has never meant less in the contemporary NHL the value of home ice home teams winning less than ever in the Stanley Cup playoffs so with that in mind you understand the responsibility here you need to keep your number one center your number one I McDavid and Dry Cidle are co-umber one centers and most teams struggle to have two i mean on most teams Sam Bennett would not be a 2C sam Bennett gets to be a 2C because of the complimentary pieces Florida has to put alongside him you think about some of the teams we’re talking about in context of say Vegas where Jack Eel is unquestionable their number one center tomas Hurdle can he stay healthy he’s pretty good but can he stay healthy you talk about Dallas well what’s down the middle after Roe Hansel why Johnston who took a bit of a step back had a rough playoffs but a talented hockey player someone you can project that team going forward working around him hints Harley and Miko Rantin and etc but where teams struggle and where teams struggle especially in free agency good teams are penalized the NHL is set up in a way to penalize good teams they try and bleed you of your depth because depth becomes so important the longer you go in the playoffs you saw that Marshand Lucin and Lindell line which profiled as their number three line in terms of the depth chart but played almost 200 minutes of five on five and was outright dominant in those 200 minutes undoubtedly the best third line we have seen in the salary cap era i know there might be a Penguins fan or two watching if Rob hello if you’re watching i know you want to say Hagland Bonino Castle but come on man marsh and Lindell Lucin were incredible they were arguably the best line in the entire playoffs not just the best third line so with that in mind thinking about the Oilers you need to keep your baseline you need your two star forwards you need your elite number one defenseman building out the rest of the team around them becomes the challenge and naturally I’m going to set it up nicely here to talking about our next segment that’s the issue for a lot of these teams on the preiphery talking about Dallas the Rangers prior to missing the playoffs last year you could talk about the Bruins before they decided to blow it up vegas to a lesser extent vancouver to a lesser extent vegas to a lesser extent excuse me not Vegas la the Kings that’s who I meant you talk about getting the supporting cast right well if you can’t pay for depth that means you’re going to buy lottery tickets that means you’re buying guys for a million and a half $2 million and hoping that everything works out and coming up next on today’s edition of Locked on Oilers we’re going to talk about the raw numbers what to expect to bookmark for Connor and for Evan Bousard add that with Leon’s number add that with Heyman add that with Nan Hopkins add that with Darnell Nurse what do the Oilers have left and how do they build a competitive roster with what’s left coming up next on today’s edition of Locked on Oilers where we’ve got your team covered every day do you ever wish managing your money felt easier with Monarch 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of Locked on Oilers as we are breaking down the big picture question and as much as we want to talk about the unrestricted free agents improving the goalie situation until the Oilers address their long-term direction which coincides with McDavid and Buchard extensions it’s a little moot because if you have to account for replacing the best player in the world you’re starting over as a hockey team if you need to replace the best defenseman on your team you’re arguably starting over as a hockey team now of course you wouldn’t just lose those guys for nothing you would find a way to get some return value but of course as we talked about on Tuesday’s show it’s almost impossible to get fair value when you’re trading a superstar cuz superstars don’t get traded for each other all that often it’s very uncommon to see two a double change of scenery trade like we see in the NBA from time to time where you see a star get traded for the other so with that in mind we know that Leon Dryidle is under contract for $14 million per year going forward the evolving wild calculation for Evan Bousard’s cap hit is $10.5 million over eight years i can envision it being as much as 12 million per year i can envision it being as low as 10 and a half million per year conor McDavid I am just spitballing the maximum he could get is about $19 million i’m going to hypothesize and surmise he might be willing to take a little bit less than that i would peg McDavid anywhere from 17 million up to that cap ceiling so I took the average of these numbers of Bousard McDavid so if you add up Leon’s 14 Bousard’s 11 that’s 25 then you add McDavid’s 17.5 that gives you 42.5 so you’re looking at $42 million for Leon Bousard and McDavid the estimated cap ceiling for next year is 95.5 million the year after is 104 and the year after that is 113 now those numbers are subject to change originally the salary cap for this upcoming season was going to be $92.5 million but the NHL’s revenue forecasts were lower than what they the revenues actually were so they were able to adjust that number that could also go the other way if next year the numbers aren’t as good it might not be that full 8.5 million up to 104 million but if we’re working with those baseline numbers if we’re saying three guys at 42 million 44% of the cap next year 40.3 the year after and then 37.1% the year after that and that’s for three guys that’s for Connor Leon and Evan Buchard now for context the Toronto Maple Leafs in this core four era at least on these last round of extensions were paying John Tavvaris 11 Austin Matthews 3.2 million the uh Mitch Mner 10.9 and William Knander 11.5 that comes out to $46.6 million and that’s for four players that $46.6 million was 53% of last year’s salary cap for four guys so with that in mind you think about it okay you dress 18 skaters and two goalies if you’re paying 53% of your cap for four skaters you still need to dress four more sk 14 more skaters excuse me and two goalies so that leaves you 16 spots to spend 47% of your cap now talking about the Oilers in our hypothetical world where Bousard signs for 11 and McDavid signs for 17 and a half on top of Leon’s 14 when you subtract 95.5 you subtract 42 million excuse me from 95.5 you get 53.5 million for 15 skaters and two goalies that comes out to 3.14 million per 15 of those 17 spots but of course the Oilers don’t have 15 empty skater spots and two goalies they have guys under contract going forward that includes Zack Heyman at $5.5 million Ryan Nan Hopkins at $5.1 million and Darnell Nurse checking in at a cool 94 million that adds up to $19.8 million so if you add our 42 million for our three big stars and then our next three highest paid players you get 61.8 million for six players then we’re really talking about a struggle to fill out the rest of the roster and that’s why as you’re looking at the Oilers roster especially this bottom six short of a full-on salary dump of Evander Kane and Victor Harvardson we’re talking about the Oilers being in the bargain bin here we are talking about Conor Brown reclamation projects coming off of serious injuries we’re talking about defective players you know guys who are 39 40 years old like Cory Perry think about the speech that uh that Jonah Hill’s character Peter Brand in Moneyball that’s not his real Paul D Podesta’s the real character’s name the real guy who was the assistant to Billy Bean for the A’s that’s why that’s why you saw my brain struggle there for a minute i couldn’t remember and I went Jonah Hill and then Peter Brand Paul Desta who’s the assistant GM of the Browns I think now if I remember correctly so with that in mind that speech he gives you are looking for guys who have something wrong at least in the way they’re perceived there might not necessarily be something wrong with them as a player but there’s something that is inhibiting their market value is keeping their price down in Perry’s case he’s really old teams are unsure he’s going to be able to hold up for a full regular season in playoffs in the case of someone like Connor Brown a couple years ago he was coming off of a serious lower body injury in the case of someone like Matias Yanmar we’re talking about a really specialized skill set that doesn’t produce a lot of counting stats and ultimately that’s what gets you paid in this league if you score 20 goals a year you’re going to make at least three $4 million in the NHL you score more goals than that then the numbers really start to add up and of course teams are going to pay for creators guys who assist more than they score but goal scoring is what gets you paid in this league you want to make money as fast as you can as consistently as you can you can carve out a really nice career as a 15 to 20 goal guy you look at the contract Ryan Donado signed to stay in Chicago donado is like as empty calorie just a shooter shooting forward as you can get but he’s put together a really solid NHL career not not getting paid crazy numbers but a reasonable market value for his impact and that’s the type of depth the Oilers are going to need to find as they move into this big three era and I don’t think there’s a world where the Oilers aren’t going to move forward with McDavid Dryidle and Evan Buchard as the core now Zack Heyman Ryan Nen Hopkins in their 30s may not age as gracefully into their mid-30s the Oilers will be able to I would say adapt to their relative declines because the salary cap’s going to go up so those numbers they’re at five and a five and 5.125 and five.5 million dollars won’t seem like as much but it does seem the longer I’ve been here talking looking into the camera that they’re going to have to find a way to move on from Darnell Nurse who of course has a full no movement clause so he has full control over what his future looks like but $9 and a4 million even when the salary cap’s 110 million 2 three years from now that’s still going to be a big chunk of change for somebody who needs to be sheltered who arguably is a third pair defenseman at this point in their career so with so much money tied up in so few guys it really means you need to knock your supporting cast out of the park and last year’s free agency didn’t go too well with Jeff Skinner and Victor Arverson skinner undoubtedly will not be back and almost assuredly Victor Arbertson will be a cap casualty this summer as the Oilers look to create more flexibility and have some opportunity to spend some money going into free agency on top of the extensions they need to agree to with Conor McDavid and Ryan Nan Hopkins we’re going to tie a bow on today’s show talking about the needs the Oilers have long term for filling out the rest of this roster then it might not be specific players but positions and arc types coming up next on today’s edition of Lockdown Oilers where we’ve got your team covered every day guys you’ve probably heard of Viagra or Seialis maybe you’ve even tried them yourself but if you’re 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prescribed under federal law but are not FDA approved and do not undergo FDA safety effectiveness or manufacturing review please visit the Rouette website for full safety information thank you to everyone who is hanging out on this Thursday edition of Locked on Oilers as we talk about the Oilers long-term future and as long as you have McDavid Dry Cidle and Bousard you’ll be a decent team i’m not saying you can stay a Stanley Cup contender with just those three and as we’re going to talk about in a second here figuring out the next wave of supporting cast is going to become imperative and in relatively short order while New Jen Hopkins and Zack Heyman are under contract for several more seasons those guys relative impact is going to decline those are not superstar players those are not the type of guys who age particularly well into their mid to late 30s those are not guys who are going to be consistently close to point per game at 36 37 38 years old and there’s nothing wrong with that like we said before the Oilers are going to be able to afford to pay those guys probably a little bit more than they’re worth because the cap’s going to go up and the market is going to consistently reset but as we talk about that market resetting archetypes and needs the Oilers have number one you need another scoring winger in here to complement Connor and Leyon you need a bonafide scoring winger you need to continue on your Sorry something’s wrong going forward you are going to need to find a bonafide scoring winger to complement when Connor and Leon bring for now Zack Heyman’s totally fine i expect Zack Heyman to be a 30 goal guy next year and have a really solid regular season i expect him to restore prominence to the Oilers power play and get that Netfront game going in short order but he’s not going to be young forever and the Oilers don’t have a particularly abundant prospect pool i expect the Oilers to try a lot of creative ways to fill some of these voids i expect them to be active in free agency i expect them to be active in the trade market but on top of another scoring winger you are going to need your Matias at home replacement sooner rather than later and that defense first archetype is arguably more rare than the offense first guy now in today’s NHL because everybody who’s growing up sees Macar sees Hughes sees Adam Fox sees Charlie Bakavoy Miro Heiskin Rasmus Dalene these offense first guys or at least offensively gifted guys putting up big numbers and getting paid and every one of these young defenseman who’s coming up says “Well why would I be a stay-at-home defensive defenseman?” He’s not going to get paid as much as good as Gustav Forsling and Jacob Slavven are they’re never going to get what Kale Mar is going to get because they don’t put up the counting stats counting stats is the path to getting paid on the back end and part of why we spent a whole episode talking about why they cannot move on from Evan Buchard yesterday and why even though he’s not on the same caliber of player as Conor Leon who were undoubtedly two of the five or six best players in the entire world whereas Buchard’s maybe top 10 at his position top 15 for sure this is an essential piece and part of that is having the complimentary skill set is having the gopher the guy who eats the hits who retrieves loose pucks who gets them to Evan Bousard so he can skate them out of trouble or pass the puck out of trouble and replacing Matias at home is going to be a struggle we have seen the Oilers try at various points over the last two years to run Bousard and Nurse together their skill sets don’t particularly mesh well even though on paper you would think there’s some overlap but Nurse likes to skate the puck out of trouble he’s not the most efficient of passer he turns the puck over an awful lot which is not a great compliment for Buchard who is not the most defensively inclined guy on top of that of course the elephant in the room how are the Oilers going to get a better goalie and we have talked ex add nauseium on lockdown Oilers over the last 12 months how do they get better in net without undermining other parts of their team and we’re going to talk in depth about goalending on tomorrow’s show so I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself but when you are talking about bottom of the barrel we’re talking cheap cheap spending $3 million between Pickard and Skinner three and a half you are saying we think the rest of our team is good enough that we can get by with this and because of that we would rather spend the $3 million difference between Pickard Skinner as a tandem and John Gibson on two forwards you know we’d rather spend that on Cory Perry and Matias Yanmar we would rather spend that on Connor Brown and Cory Perry we would rather spend it on Adam Henrik you know he makes about three.5 million $4 million so we would rather spend the difference between those two on a forward as opposed to a goalie because a goalie just isn’t going to be able to impact the game as much especially a goalie in that tier we know teams generally pay for goalending based on consistency the more consistently good you are the more money a team is going to be willing to offer you that’s true of all positions but especially in net where so few teams are willing to move on from their starters even if they’re not a particularly good team you know Seattle could probably get something nice for Joey Decord they’re not going to do that nashville could get a hall for Jussi Soros they’re not going to do that it’s really hard to get fair market on the goalie it is really hard to get fair value on the goalie market sorry about that tripped on my words and that puts you in a position where you’re going to be inclined to hold on to a guy even if he’s not in alignment with your window of contention and it’s why there aren’t a lot of trade candidates and like we’re going to get into on tomorrow’s episode of Locked on Oilers there ain’t a lot of free agents that are particularly exciting either so with all of that said the Oilers are in a nice position because they have identified core components they have a few nice supporting cast pieces in Nan Hopkins Zack Heyman to a lesser extent Darnell Nurse Jake Wman for one more year but that’s that’s an ancillary piece they need another scoring winger they need another quality left-handed defenseman they need a goalie those are not going to come cheap and when you are spending 40 something% of the cap on three guys for at least one or two years it makes filling out the rest of your roster a lot more challenging because you don’t have margin for error you can afford to overpay in other spots in your lineup when you don’t have a ton of money to go around but that will do it for today’s edition of Locked Oners if you could be so kind please subscribe wherever you get your podcast if you’re listening on Apple or Spotify please give the show a fivestar review if you’re watching over on YouTube hit that subscribe button hit that like button let me know how do you feel about the Oilers spending so much money on just a handful of guys i will talk to you guys tomorrow but first be sure to check out Locked on NHL wherever you get your podcast or over on YouTube i’ll see you guys then and until then let’s go Oilers

The Edmonton Oilers are heading into the “Big 3” era with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard commanding over $40 million in cap space combined. On today’s Locked On Oilers, Nick Zararis breaks down what it will take to keep this core intact, build around them, and still remain a Stanley Cup contender over the next three seasons.

From long-term cap projections to depth archetypes, defensive needs, and goaltending dilemmas, this is the full roadmap to Edmonton’s competitive future.

4:44 Stable cores of Stanley Cup contenders

10:55 McDavid and Bouchard contract projections

15:30 Challenges of filling out the roster

21:43 Finding complementary players for the core

27:48 Outro: Subscribe and review the show

How the Edmonton Oilers can afford the big three of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisail and Evan Bouchard

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