The Edmonton Oilers aren’t going to win Connor McDavid over with money. This isn’t a negotiation — he will sign for whatever he wants, whenever he wants, wherever he wants.
And you can dismiss the notion that his options are limited because only one or two other contenders in the NHL can afford to fit him in. If McDavid’s agent phones any team in the league and says his guy wants to play there, they will make it work.
They aren’t negotiating term, either. If McDavid tells them he wants a two-year deal, which means three more years in Edmonton, the Oilers aren’t going to say “Sorry Connor, it needs to be six. Let’s talk again in a week, but we’re pretty firm on the six-year thing.”
As with the money, McDavid will sign for as long as he wants, whenever he wants, wherever he wants.
This is about the future.
The Oilers need to show that they are going to be a top contender until the end of the decade, at least. And we’re not talking about being a really good team simply because McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard play on it — the last 10 years have proven that’s not enough.
McDavid needs to know that the Oilers will not only sustain their momentum throughout his next (hopefully) contract, but actually improve on it because they still aren’t as good as the Florida Panthers.
McDavid has said many times that he has full confidence in the 2025-26 team, but what about beyond that?
That’s where GM Stan Bowman and hockey operations boss Jeff Jackson and even owner Daryl Katz have to do their convincing.
“(McDavid) has a really good pulse on the team, as the leader and the captain he has thoughts on things and I want to understand that so I can work together on that,” Bowman said at his media availability before training camp opens Thursday.
“He does ask me where I envision things (beyond this season). It’s not about just one thing, but (conversations) definitely do touch on the future.”
If the Oilers want to keep McDavid here for another long-term deal, and not just a two-year farewell tour, they have to make this situation look as appealing as possible because, as of right now, McDavid says his future in Edmonton “remains to be seen.”
“We have time,” he said in a SportsNet interview. “It’s our decision. Basically, we’ve earned that. And we’re gonna take our time with it.”
Fair enough.
McDavid worked his whole life to be in this position — one season away from becoming one of the most coveted unrestricted free agent in sports history — so there is every chance, and every reason to believe, that he is at least contemplating it.
What if you were an Edmonton kid who worked 10 years for a company on the other side of North America and had a great run, establishing yourself as the best in your profession and were a millionaire 100 times over? And what if, when your contract was up, you could choose anywhere in the world you wanted to work?
Would you at least consider somewhere else? Or would you sign for eight more years before your last contract had even expired?
And if you were an Edmonton kid, would you consider coming back home, where all of your family and friends are, where your parents could watch you all the time, where you could set start a new family surrounded by existing family?
If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then you might have some sense of the options Edmonton’s captain is weighing.
So it’s on the Oilers to show him something. Soon.
It starts, one would suppose, at training camp, where we’ll get our first glimpse of what that future might look like in a world were the aging Oilers, the second oldest team in the NHL, don’t have a lot of draft picks.
With Matt Savoie, acquired in a trade for Ryan McLeod, and Ike Howard, the NCAA free agent, the Oilers are hoping to see a pair of 21-year-olds who are on their way to becoming next-generation impact players. And with a handful of free agents from Europe, led by Swedish league-leading scorer David Tomasek, we get a sense of what Bowman’s assembly line might look like.
“There are a lot of different ways to do it in the NHL,” Bowman said of going the free-agent route. “Some teams are focused all on draft picks, and there’s nothing wrong with that strategy.”
But where the Oilers are in their evolution, with the Cup window still open, late first-rounders and beyond aren’t what they need.
“Unless those draft picks are in the top five, those guys aren’t going to help you for a couple of years. We’re bringing guys in who can help us right away, like (defenceman Jake) Walman.”
They’re also showing they still have an eye on the future by courting and investing in unsigned European and NCAA talent, like Howard, Tomasek and Quinn Hutson.
“That’s the approach that makes the most sense right now,” said Bowman. “It won’t always be that way, but for now, with what we want to do, with our player development having taken on a bigger role, it’s important to get the talent from wherever we can, whatever age they are, and seeing in a year or two if they can become the players we want them to be.”
We’ll see if it works. Given the stakes, it’s kind of important that it does.
E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com