What If the Oilers Lose Connor McDavid? | McDavid Trade Scenarios + Edmonton’s Future Without Him

What If the Oilers Lose Connor McDavid? | McDavid Trade Scenarios + Edmonton’s Future Without Him

I think it’s going to happen. You think it’s going to happen. But what if the Edmonton Oilers don’t extend Conor McDavid on today’s edition of Locked On Oilers. [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 Friday edition of Locked On Oilers. I am your host Nick Sars. 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 Locked On podcast network where we’ve got your team covered every day. And today’s show is brought to you by our friends over at Monarch Money. If you’re ready to take control of your finances, you need to head on over to monarchmoney.com and use code locked on NHL for 50% off your first year’s subscription. So on today’s edition of Lockdown Oilers, I’m going to break down why not extending Conor McDavid now is going to be an organizational failure of the highest magnitude. It we are going to approach it from a few different perspectives. Number one, we are going to start out with just the baseline idea. What does it mean if you have to potentially trade the best player in hockey? Our second segment, we’ll entertain what potential trade packages could look like. I’m going to be honest, it’s probably not going to look like what the Oilers got from the LA Kings. way back when. And then in our final segment, we will tie a bow on today’s show talking about why even though the longer this drags on, the more nervous I get, you got to keep the faith. So, to start things out, and I make no reservations or hesitations in saying this, and I tweeted this last week as the specul I can’t even call it speculation, as the conjecture because nobody knows anything. We we all have to operate on a sink tap information basis where you know how if you leave the sink open a crack drip drip drip drip that’s all we got and a lot of the time especially this time of year where we are in the doldrums of summer where there is nar a word of hockey news to break we got air time to fill podcasts radio shows TV shows columns substacks wherever there is hockey media, there are obligations to fulfill. There are ad obligations. There are contract obligations. So, parties are going to speculate because speculation in a sports context is fun to talk about. You know, we’re going to talk about in our second segment how it basically be impossible to get fair value for Conor McDavid even if you got good players in return. But when you’re doing a show, when you’re writing, when you’re trying to make people engage to think, I understand why speculation, fantasy trades, all of these types of things are popular because it requires us all to think. It requires us all to use our brains to varying degrees. And everybody plays fantasy sports. Everybody casually sports gamles. So, we all like to think, we know something about the sports world, how much players are worth, how much they’re worth in trades, all of that good stuff. So, this is not based on any news reporting. We know that last summer Dry Cidle signed his extension pretty close to the start of the season and that had dragged on and on through the summer. And look, Connor’s brother’s getting married. Leon’s getting married. He’s a busy guy. It’s not particularly pressing. There are not going to be organizational changes between now and say the end of August when we would start looking towards training camp and then it starts to really become a story. So, let’s start there knowing that if we get to the start of the regular season without a contract agreed to, it is going to be the biggest story in the sport. Point blank, if the best player in the world enters a lame duck contract year, there is going to be ample ample conjecture about, well, what do the Oilers do? Do they trade him? Do they risk letting him walk for nothing? And look, there’s no way to know until you get there. And we’ll look, we’ll entertain the trade hypothetical coming up in our next segment, so I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but when you think about it, just abstractly, you are never going to win trading the best player in the world. And that alone is my driving force as to why I think a lot of this is just noise. And when we get down to the ugly part of it, we are talking about the best player in the world. Since he entered the league, I would say McDavid has been the best player in the world since probably 2018, 2019 at the absolute latest, and he has continuously been the best player in the world. Sure, McKinnon and Matthews have won MVPs in the mix since then. Dry Cidle won the one in 2020, of course, but night in and night out, this is the best, most talented, electrifying player in the entire sport. This is not something that comes around all that often. We are talking about a once in every 10 to 15 years type player. And I know the NHL was kind of funky there. We’re in the mid2010s. You had McKinnon, McDavid, and Austin Matthews enter the league in three consecutive seasons. And to some degree, that kind of makes up for the earlier part of the 2010s where the first overall picks weren’t as exhilarating, exciting. Like, look, I N is a really good player. Aaron Ekblad has carved out a really nice career for himself. Now, Yakapov, of course, Taylor Hall, but we’re talking about the best player in the world here. when this is the caliber of player that when they have the junior season they do the year before they’re draft eligible we start talking about in August well you want to stink you know right like the conversation we are having right now about Gavin McKenna who committed to Penn State a few weeks ago to go play college hockey for one year for his draft year there are teams around the NHL right now in 2025 that are fully banking on having a bad regular season on having a chance to win the lottery and then winning the lottery because this player is that good. If you’ll recall, a litany of teams in 2014-15 stunk up the joint something fierce between the Leafs, between the Sabres, between the Oilers, and then there were teams, you know, every year there’s going to be a team that does it by accident where they don’t expect to be that bad, but they read the tea leaves and then they jump into the mix later on. But you don’t recover from a player like this moving on. This is an organiza or organizational shifting moment if you cannot come to an agreement with McDavid and you need to trade him. This is the caliber of player that you spend two or three years tanking in hopes of getting one guy who might become 75 to 80% of this. the Oilers for the 2010s, for all of the jokes, for all of the missed playoffs, for all of the problems. They emerged from that decade with the best player in the world on their team for eight years, the contract he had signed that expires after this upcoming season. When you have a player that is this good, you have to move heaven and earth to accommodate him. Now, I think the Oilers have very actively and consciously designed this team in a way that it is for McDavid. Whether that’s having Dry Cidle to be a running mate in end ofame situations where they need a goal or on the power play, whether it’s giving Evan Buchard maybe half a million dollars, a million dollar more than they would like. Whether it’s the constant trips to the bargain bin for guys like Evander Kane, Connor Brown, Victor Arverson, Jeff Skinner, Cory Perry, all guys who have rotated in and out through Edmonton who weren’t particularly expensive because they were depreciated assets. But when you have guys like McDavid, like Dryidle, that’s a draw. That gets people who are depreciated assets who look at the situation and say, “If I go to Edmonton, I can rebuild some of my value. I might not be there a long time, but I’m going to have a chance to play with some of the best players in the world. I’m going to have a chance to rebuild my value, and then when I get back out there next summer, I’m going to have a chance to make more money. And look, being a destination location is a very nice luxury as a franchise that free agents want to sign with you, but that’s all very fleeting. It It doesn’t take a lot for that environment to go wrong. Very quickly, the Oilers should they lose Conor McDavid, you lose your destination status, your premier status. So, we are going to take our first break on today’s edition of Locked on Oilers. When we come back, sure, we’ll entertain it. None of these trades are going to sound good. You’re not going to be happy with any of them. I’m not going to be happy with any of them, but we’ll talk about them because they are interesting. Coming up next on today’s edition of Locked on Oiler. Do you ever wish managing your money felt easier? 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So, if you are ready to take control of your finances, you need to visit monarchmoney.com today and use code lockdown.nhl to get 50% off your first year’s subscription. One more time, that’s monarchmoney.com. Code locked on NHL, half off your first year’s subscription. Thank you to everyone who is hanging out on this Friday edition of Locked on Oilers as we are breaking down the very unlikely possibility that the Oilers cannot come to terms with Conor McDavid. And look, in this second segment, we are going to explore trades. Not a single one of these is going to feel good. Every single one of these is going to make your stomach itch stomach hurt. It’s going to make your arm itch. It’s going to make your eye twitch. You are never going to be able to get fair value trading the best player in the world. When you go and look at the the bundle of assets the Kings gave up for Wayne Gretzky back in the day, you’re talking about like $15 million on top of a bunch of draft picks and players. So just at a baseline because the salary cap is a thing now and you can’t just trade money. I think that possibility of a really watered down frankly bundle of assets including money and draft picks and prospect I I don’t think there’s a world where that would be the case. I think the baseline here is one impact young player at the b at at already established in the NHL. Now I think there are a few ways you could construct this in your brain. I think realistically you would be looking at two really good young players as just the starting point. That’s not to include all the bells and whistles, the final bow if you will on the present. But when you think about some of the more recent superstar trades, you think about what Buffalo got for Jack Eel, Alex Tuck, some draft picks, Payton Krebs, you think about what the Senators got for Eric Carlson from the Sharks, Matthew Kachchuck, what he got from the Florida Panther, what he the Florida Panthers gave up to get him. You know, Mackenzie Waguer and Jonathan Hubedo. Hubedo who had finished second in MVP voting that year. And look, Vhubo expiring contract, weird situation there where he him and Kachchuck both effectively got new contracts as part of it. And that would be the first point to make here and understanding this situation. If the Oilers really did this, if they really had to consider trading McDavid, they would be idiots to not trade him as soon as possible because you want to agree to a signing trade. You want him to agree to sign with his next team so you can get as much in return as you possibly can. You think about what the Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes did earlier this summer with Keandre Miller where that got them Scott Marorrow and a couple of draft picks. That was conditional on Keandre Miller signing an extension with Carolina. So that’s the baseline assuming McDavid is going for 4x 15, 4×6, 5x 15 or 16 that starts the conversation. So, he’s going to sign an extension with wherever he’s going. So, at a baseline, you need to have money coming out. Sure. Could he end up on a team that has 15, 20, 30 million in cap space? I suppose, but I don’t see a world where a team in that category would have the requisite assets to make it happen. Like sure the Blackhawks could give you Conor Bard, Alex Vlic, and like three other prospects and draft picks, but I don’t think that’s what you’re looking at here if you’re the Oilers. I think if you were seriously considering trading Conor McDavid, you need two blue chip prospects, not just good. I mean guys who have already played in the NHL and looked the part. Like for example, let’s say you’re looking at Chicago and you really like Conor Bard as your starting point. Okay. So what goes with him? Frank Nazer, Alex Vlic I at a certain point the Oilers who are paying Dry Cidle, who are paying Bard, who are paying Darnell Nurse, New Jen Hopkins, Zack Heyman, when you are in a window of contention the way the Oilers are at present because of Conor McDavid who elevates all boats. He’s the rising tide. He makes the team overall better because he gets more out of everyone else and because he’s capable of doing things no one else can. It’s not enough to just get prospects back. Because as we all know, prospects are lottery tickets. They are a chance at an impact player. They are a possibility. And look, nobody loves a prospect conversation more than I do. As someone who just likes the intellectual side of the sport, of the roster construction, who enjoys the theory behind it, trying to understand it, if you traded the best player in the world for a bunch of prospects, everybody would be demanding your head on a plate and they would be right to do it. You need proven established NHL talent in return. And look, there are degrees in this conversation. I think if you really wanted to entertain this, you would call the San Jose Sharks and it would start with Mlin Celibbrini. Whether it included Will Smith, whether it included William Ecklund, whether it included Shakir Muk Magdulan or any of the other guys the Sharks have drafted over the last handful of seasons, at a baseline, you need at least one guy in that conversation of can this be an elite player? Can this be one of the 10 to 15 best players in the world? So, if you wanted to go the cheap end of things like I was suggesting with the Sharks, the Sharks have the 20 million in cap space. They are a team that has been incrementally building. And look, they’ve also done some very stupid things. Trade claiming Barkley could draw off of waiverss, claiming Ry trading for Ryan Reeves. Very stupid, very inefficient, very just poor players. But Mike Greer is going as slow as he possibly can there because he understands that until his young guys take leaps, it’s all for not. You can add as many second and third line wingers and depth defenseman as you want in free agency or in salary dumps around the draft, but until you have your blue chip firstline center to carry your team, you are never going to be as serious a contender as you need to be. So assuming that’s the starting point, you want a Mlin Celibbrini type player, you probably also need to give them Will Smith. And I don’t think the Sharks would do that. flat up, straight up, I don’t think a hockey team, even for Conor McDavid, would give you two costcontrolled guys 18, 19 years old, who both have the capacity to be special. And look, it’s cuz it doesn’t make sense for the Sharks because even if you put Conor McDavid on the Sharks, that’s not a playoff team. And look, I like the guys they have. I like Tofoley. I like a lot of the veteran pieces they have. They’ve assembled a really good group of guys to be around their young pieces around William Mecklland and Will Smith and around Mlin Celebr. But until you find your next guy, you can’t do that. I think the Montreal Canadians, could they make the money work? It would be difficult. But the Canadians have a small army of exciting young prospects. And the problem there though, you would be getting a defenseman in return as the focal point of the trade. And look, I love Lane Hudson. I was an enthralled. I was going to say exhilarated, but that didn’t feel like it was doing him justice. One of the most electrifying players I have ever seen at that position. Young as he is, he has so much time to get better. I think there’s a world where Lane Hudson ends up in that Quinn Hughes, Jake Sanderson, Kale Mar, Adam Fox tier. I think it’s not out of the realm of possibility Lane Hudson eventually gets there. Should he fill out his frame because, you know, he is on the slender side. He’s still got to fill out his frame a little bit more if he wants to be better defensively. I do think that’s integral, but we’re talking about proven established guys. You know, Celibbrini finished second. Lane Hudson won the Calder Trophy. I don’t think Mitchov and Philly would get it done. Even if you did Mitchikov and Porter Malone who went back to Michigan State and like Travis Kknney and like Travis Sanheim, I I just don’t think a team like the Flyers has the assets. Could you do something crazy? Could you do something like McDavid for Carill Capri off and like Joel Erikson or Jared Spurgeon? Maybe, but you would have to find a way to extend Carrill Capri off and that’s not really helping the Oilers situation and that’s why this exercise is such a challenge. and frankly why it would be stupid to trade him. As much as it would be difficult to go into the season without an extension, we are going to keep the faith. We are going to keep the faith that Stan Bowman can get this done. We are going to take our second and final break on today’s edition of Locked on Oilers. And when we come back, I’m going to tell you why the Oilers will get this done right after this break. Thank you to everyone who is hanging out on this Friday edition of Lockdown Oilers as we face the doomsday scenario. And look, there is no ifs, ands, or buts. You lose the best player in the league, your team takes a massive step back. Not one, not two. You go from being a Stanley Cup contender to maybe a bubble team. And look, I I love Leon. I love Bouch. I think at home will bounce back. I think Wman at a full year, Jake Wman’s going to mean a lot. Zack Heyman should bounce back. Without Conor McDavid, this roster is very unimpressive. Period. They’re a bubble team. Are they even better than the Flames? Without McDavid, there’s real conversation to be had there that what if Dustin Wolf takes a step and the Flames have an elite goalie and they have a really solid but not great group of skaters in front of him. Is that enough to leaprog Edmonton Sans McDavid? Could the Kings leaprog the Oilers in the pecking order? Not just in the standings, which as we know based on last year, the regular season standings don’t matter a whole lot, but could the Kings jump the Oilers in the contendership tier? And look, there’s no way to know until it happens. But I am speaking authoritatively here. You do not recover from trading a player like this. You think about just how much McDavid does in every phase of the game. what he does for his teammates, what he does for the Oilers at large, what he does for the way Chris Knoblock uses his team. You do not come back from trading a player of this caliber. Period. You don’t. You think about how long it’s taken the Senators to recover from Eric Carlson. The Sabres still have yet to recover from Jack Eel. And neither of those guys is as good as Conor McDavid. Look, I think there’s a real possibility the Maple Leafs come to dramatically regret letting Mitch Mner leave because he’s such an impactful player and as expensive as he is, you’re always going to be better off paying market value for one superstar than market value for three guys who are smaller pieces that you hope can all add up to McDavid’s production. You know, you can’t replace McDavid in the aggregate because of the dynamic ability he has, because of the fact he makes everybody around him better. Could you hypothetically make a more well-rounded lineup for more even lines if you were to distribute McDavid’s 15 or $16 million on his next contract throughout three or four empty spots? Sure. But none of those guys even all added up is going to be as singularly impactful as McDavid. I think if anything, the great inefficiency in today’s NHL is that superstars are underpaid relative to their value. When you have one player who can produce 20 to$25 million of value in terms of their replacement level like McDavid can, even if you got five guys who add it up to 20 war, it’s not going to be the same thing because they don’t have the ability to make the plays outside of structure to make their linemates better. It it it’s not like it’s not like baseball where you can replace 15 home runs with two or three guys in a platoon. Hockey doesn’t work like that. There is so much more variance that if one of those three or four guys that you try and bring in to replace the superstar production doesn’t, well, your entire premise falls apart because you need four things to work out as opposed to just one. Yeah, there are probabilities within each of those four that have varying degrees of possibility of panning out. But you get you get what I’m saying here. And that’s why I think the Oilers, even if it messes them up down the road, even if it means you got to trade a good player, like if that means you got to cut bait with a NE Hopkins or with a Zack Heyman or a Matias Ecom now to accommodate McDavid going forward, you got to do it. And look, that’s the nature of the salary cap. It exists to penalize good teams. Good teams are supposed to be broken up. Their talent is supposed to be distributed to the lesser teams. That’s why there is a commiserative expectation that if you were a bad team, you were going to spend more in free agency because you were going to try and plug in holes. There’s an understanding that if you’re a player and you get to unrestricted free agency, more often than not, you’re probably going to sign with a team that is dramatically dramatically looking for any type of validation. any type of success. And when you can buy talented, gifted players, that buys you credibility with your owner, with your fan base, and anybody who is incapable of extending McDavid deserves to lose their job. Point blank. I genuinely feel that if the Oilers are not able to extend Conor McDavid and they need to move him, Stan Bowman should be fired. I think when you look at everything the Oilers have done in the last two or three years to set themselves up for this summer, making themselves bonafide Stanley Cup contenders, making McDavid’s former agent Jeff Jackson the president of hockey operations, hiring McDavid’s former junior hockey coach Chris Knoblock to be the coach of the team, taking care of dry citles, signing Evan Bard longterm, everything the Oilers have done, signing Zack Heyman in free agency a couple years ago, trading for Matias Eckholm, everything the Oilers have done since 2021 has been preparing for this moment to put the best possible team around McDavid. And look, I said this after the Stanley Cup final. There’s a good chance that it never happens. Now, there’s a good chance that the last two years were the best chances the Oilers were going to get at any point in the McDavid title era. Now, I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I’m saying mathematically, statistically, it’s probably unlikely. You go to a Stanley Cup final two years in a row, that alone of itself is pretty unlikely. you’re telling me you’re going to get there a third time with a relatively similar core and that’ll be the time you break through. That type of thing just doesn’t happen. You know, you look at the Bills in the ‘9s, you look at some of the teams that lingered around the periphery last decade, like the Sharks, like the Rangers who only got to cup finals once. You know, Nashville only got to a cup final once. Washington, who won the whole thing, only got to a cup final once. When you think about it in that context, you understand just how difficult it is to win in a team sport. No matter how good the players you have are, you think about Henrik Lungquist on those Rangers teams, the Sharks, Burns, Pavvelski, Thornon, Couture, Hurdle, all those great players, they only got there one time. Nashville, you think about having Yosi, Suban, Peak, Picarene. You think about how good these teams were and what they have to show for it and how hard it is to replace loss. And I expect this to get done even if it’s for an ugly number, even if it’s for short term. The Oilers cannot allow Conor McDavid to enter next season without a contract. It would be the biggest distraction imaginable and the team is going to take a step back almost certainly. I feel like by definition when you lose the amount of talent they’ve lost over the two years, you have to take a step back. It is implausible that the Oilers, even though I think they will be a playoff team, are going to stay Stanley Cup contenders for a third year in a row. It would be genuinely shocking should the Oilers get to a Stanley Cup final a third year in a row just because of all the talent they lost. And that’s not an indictment of the guys who are here. It’s just that when you lose Holloway and Broberg and Fogle and Perry and Arbertson and Skinner and your replacements are college free agents and European free agents because you have no more money to spend, it becomes really tricky to talk yourself into this on a certain level. And that’s really the trick here. How much can the Oilers afford to pay McDavidle and Bousard and stay competitive around those guys? Because as Leafs fans have been very quick to point out about Mitch Mner, if he really cared about winning, he would have been inclined to take less money because it would have put him in a position for where the Leafs could have afforded to spend more on other places. But as is his right as a great player, Mitch Mner, he can command as much as he wants. And look, it’s very simple. If this is about money and the Oilers don’t do it, it’ll be a riot. It’s really that straightforward. If this comes down to just the AAV, there will be a riot in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, because that is a bad excuse. You pay the best player in the league whatever he wants. There are so many other ways the Oilers can save money on terms of their roster that it would be negligence of the highest order. And I repeat what I had said a few minutes ago. Should Stan Bowman not be able to extend McDavid, period, he should be fired. No ifs, ands, buts, ex. If they do not get Conor McDavid locked up for four or five years a after this summer, Stan Bowman should be fired and the Oilers are going to need to start over. They are an old team that is trying to keep their window open as much as they can. Without the best player in the world, their window is no longer open. But we are going to keep the faith. The Oilers are going to get this done. They are going to put themselves in a position to build around McDavid Dryidle and Evan Bousard for the foreseeable future because we believe that’ll do it for today’s edition of Locked on Oilers. If you could be so kind, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast. If you happen to be listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave the show a fivestar review. If you’re watching over on YouTube, hit that subscribe button, hit that alarm bell. Let me know how nervous are you the Oilers aren’t going to be able to extend McDavid. I will talk to you guys on Monday. Everyone have a safe and fun weekend. Let’s go Oilers.

The Edmonton Oilers’ future hangs in the balance. What happens if Connor McDavid doesn’t sign an extension? On today’s episode of Locked On Oilers, Nick Zararis breaks down why failing to extend the best player in the NHL would be an organizational disaster. We dive into potential trade packages, what kind of return Edmonton could even hope for, and the long-term implications of losing McDavid.

From the ripple effect on free agency to the psychological impact on the franchise, this episode explores every angle of the doomsday scenario. Featuring discussions on players like Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, Lane Hutson and more.

5:16 McDavid’s impact as best player in NHL

10:52 Exploring potential McDavid trade scenarios

16:29 Challenges of getting fair value for McDavid

21:33 Why superstars like McDavid are irreplaceable

26:41 Importance of extending McDavid for Oilers’ future

What If the Oilers Lose Connor McDavid? | McDavid Trade Scenarios + Edmonton’s Future Without Him
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