The Edmonton Oilers signed Kasperi Kapanen this morning, the deal is one-year, $1.3 million. The team also signed RH center Noah Philp, $775,000 on a one-year deal. Both players have a real chance to play for the Edmonton Oilers in the coming year.
For Kapanen, a waiver claim, the 1.17 points-60 and 35 percent goal share (both at five-on-five) were pedestrian and poor, respectively. His 51 percent expected goal share is encouraging, and of course he was better in the playoffs (with a poor expected goal share, completing the regression from the regular season totals).
I’d put Kapanen as the No. 5 right-wing on the roster. Zach Hyman leads the way, Viktor Arvidsson is here until he isn’t, David Tomasek should impact the team here, Matthew Savoie should play the entire year in a middle-six role, and then Kapanen. That’s a roster spot for sure, with Max Jones, Quinn Hutson and Roby Jarventie all in the mix.
We don’t know about Connor Brown or Corey Perry, that’ll impact the depth chart if either signs. Once Arvidsson is dealt, Kapanen lands in the top 12 forwards, and you (or the Oilers) may like him more than Savoie.
Noah Philp had a 56 percent goal share and a 56 percent expected goal share five-on-five in 15 games with the Oilers last season. The downbeat? A .90 points-60 and his boots looked a little slow when he was going hell bent for leather on the backcheck. I like him for the Oilers, he looked plenty fast enough in preseason, maybe he had a hitch in his giddyup.
I count Philp as the No. 5 center on the team. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Adam Henrique (or the Nuge swapping with Henrique) is the heart of the order. I think Mattias Janmark enters summer as the fourth center, followed by Philp and then James Hamblin. Lots of wingers who could play center, including Trent Frederic and David Tomasek, but I like Philp for his PK, faceoff, outscoring skills. He’s a good player. Honest.
I think it’s good the Oilers are close to the cap. Why? Mistakes are made on July 1 that have far reaching impact. On July 2, 2016, after the Hall-Larsson trade and Milan Lucic signing, I wrote “Peter Chiarelli is overpaying for these things, and there is reason to be concerned. Just because a team has all manner of assets does not mean the general manager can play fast and loose with the real gold. No matter how you feel about this week—and the additions are very nice—the years of Taylor Hall just sent away are very concerning. We need to acknowledge that, and by that I mean understanding in our own minds the price paid this summer to tunnel through to a respectable defense.”
The Oilers need to make room for value deals. I think we can suggest today that Matt Savoie, David Tomasek, Vasily Podkolzin are such contracts, and you might be able to add Kapanen, Philp, Atro Leppanen and Roby Jarventie to that list (depending on performance) next season. Stan Bowman needs to sign value contracts and avoid a Luciceberg at all costs.
Today on the Lowdown, we review the draft and look forward to free agency. Jason Gregor will join us and we’ll chat about the new picks and contracts, noon to 2 on Sports 1440.
New for The Athletic: Edmonton Oilers top 20 prospects ranking, summer 2025 edition
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6459651/2025/06/30/oilers-prospects-ranking-summer-2025/
Pretty impressive year 1 for this management team. The popular term now is dog, and they are certainly looking for them. The future looks much brighter today, and I hope the development team can make an impact. You can’t teach will and heart, so makes sense to use it as the prerequisite and develop from there.
Thanks for the update LT.
‘
I feel we need to sign Klim Kostin today. He will come in near a minimum contract, around a million a year as a UFA winger. He’s very tough, will fight anybody to protect our guys…and in brief stints showed he could even play with McDavid and has a wicked shot to boot. He will outperform his contract so I believe the Oilers should sign him to multiple years at a million dollars only, as they need minimum contract guys who can step up and play with the big guns. P.S. Frederic can’t fight everybody, especially if we trade Nurse… and he would be perfect against the Panthers!
It’s a double edge sword. Absolutely love having this core in Edmonton, a pleasure to watch and cheer for. Although there were some mistakes along the way such as Reinhart for 16&33 overall, Hall trade, Lucic and Nurse contracts and some over pays on deadline deals, nothing was overly debilitating and not the reason it’s a tough spot for any GM, the primary reason is:
Drai = $14M
Mc = $12.5M
Bouch = $10.5M
Nurse = $9.25M
Total = $46.25M / 48% of the cap
Near impossible to ice a balanced team. Sacrifices need to be made in other areas i.e. Savoie and Podz on 2nd line, $3.6M combined in goal, league min on 4th line.
With Mc’s new deal starting in 2026-2027, it will be 2031 before the cap catches up to those contracts and there is space to ice a balanced team. By then Mc/Drai will be around Ovechkin’s age when he won his first and only cup.
Creativity in many other cities the last few weeks. Why does it still feel like Oiler management are juat happy when a player is willing to play here regardless of the cap crunch created
It’s not just us … it’s every team in the league except Vegas, Florida and Tampa (to a lesser extent). Scope out what the BJs just paid to retain Provorov for instance, and watch what Vancouver will do to try to retain Hughes. Those sunbelt teams offer a lifestyle that other markets can’t compete with.
Development camp roster is more experienced and older than normal. Its usually a small group of true raw players. The likes of Savoie and SOR and Ungar and Fischer are attending.
Samuel J. as well – perhaps there are plans for him to come over to N. America this season – with him attending this camp over hear and Rodrigue not being qualified….
ForwardsMatt Savoie
Sam O’Reilly
William Nicholl
Tommy Lafrenière
David Lewandowski
Aidan Park
Quinn Hutson
Connor Clattenburg
Matt Copponi
Petr Hauser
Viljami Marjala
Rhett Pitlick
James Stefan
Brady Stonehouse
Dalyn Wakely
DefencemanAsher Barnett
Beau Akey
Damien Carfagna
Bauer Berry
Paul Fischer
Albin Sundin
GoaliesSamuel Jonsson
Daniel Salonen
Connor Ungar
Nathaniel Day
Josh Banini
https://oilersnation.com/news/edmonton-oilers-2025-development-camp-roster
Cam Wright not being qualified makes sense. The only reason he got an NHL deal last year was so they could get the exact cap hit they needed prior to putting Kane on LTIR to maximize their LTIR reserves. He is a good and solid AHL player and I presume the Condors will sign him to an AHL deal.
I’m surprised they didn’t qualify Rodrigue – maybe they do have plans on Samuel J. coming over to North America – I figured a season in the SHL first made sense. I’m looking forward to Nathanial Day’s first year pro.
Where are all the stories about pressure from NHLPA to push salaries for these sweet Florida deals?
No kidding, right!
The histrionics in the comments in here today are absolutely fascinating.
There is so much wrong with what went on and what is still going on in Florida. The rest of the league’s players have 3 choices going forward. 1) collect their regular season paychecks, FU to the league and let it live with the cesspool it has created 2) chase #2 year after year 3) run the Panthers, start with Bib (sorry you might be a nice guy) every single shift of every single game, for 84 games straight, anything goes. I would be solidly in the #3 camp.
F that team. Hard to compete with so much talent taking huge pay cuts to stay together.
Give Andrei’s kid a shot if he’s still around later in the summer: https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=213172
@JasonGregor
The Oilers did not submit qualifying offers to:
Olivier Rodrigue
Cameron Wright
Jacob Perreault.
All are now free agents.
5:23 PM · Jun 30, 2025
Good luck to Cam Wright especially. Really enjoy that type of hockey player.
Sail on beach ball Rodrique.
Strap on the pads and show us how it’s done.
Pretty sure Marchand can’t just go on LTIR because he’s old. The CBA had the 35+ clause to ensure Florida has 5+ mil against the cap for the next 6 years
Don’t worry Brad will suffer a severe allergic reaction due to a cheesecake dessert in summer 2028 and be forced into an early retirement. The real question is which team will be the modern day Coyotes desperate to hit the salary floor by then?
Why not a Marchand-style contract for Perry? What numbers work for Edmonton? 4 x 1.5M? That puts him $1M over the rumoured 2 x $2.5M.
I like Boeser, he’s had some tough time since losing his dad and with his illness before that. But these numbers without Hughes are absolutely scary. Change of scenery may help but there’s a good chance whoever signs him regrets it and quickly
https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerreport.php?fromseason=20242025&thruseason=20242025&stype=2&sit=ev&stdoi=oi&rate=n&v=t&playerid=8478444
https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerreport.php?fromseason=20232024&thruseason=20232024&stype=2&sit=ev&stdoi=oi&rate=n&v=t&playerid=8478444
and the year before is only slightly better
If Bowman signs Boesser for significant money tomorrow, it will be a death knell for the McDavid Oilers long term Cup aspirations.
After Holland and Chia, Bowman was tasked with a situation where there was zero room for error cap wise. Signing a mediocre winger to a bloated contract would be such a mistake.
Unfortunately, there is very little in Bowman’s track record that demonstrates he is a true big-brained general manager.
The Oilers should absolutely not sign Boeser. He’s really bad. He has a good shot and that’s it. He can’t create for himself at all, and is slower than any current Oiler. He also can’t defend.
The Dys are letting him walk because he’s asking for 8×8 and has scored over 30 goals once in his career.
The Canucks management team is bad and even they know that Boeser’s contract is a guaranteed poison pill.
Yikes. I know where this is going. Because Oilers
Some team is going to end up desperate enough to make the mistake, but I don’t think the Oilers have the cap space which is its own blessing. Even moving Arvidsson only gets them halfway there.
Agreed, I don’t think there’s a realistic path here
Well when they keep taking the maximum amount of money they can, these Oilers don’t then get to turn around and tell us how winning is the most important thing. Spare me.
So we are paying 250k more for Bouch and Frederik than the Panthers are paying for Ekblad and Bennett.
Looks good now and will look even better a couple years from now.
So, after being the #1 for back-to-back Cup winners, Aaron Ekblad negotiated a contract that pays him LESS than his last one? Alright; there is something going on beyond no-tax and “I’ll take less to play for a winner.”
live in Miami, play for a two time cup winner, no state tax.
Im surprised that more of the owners don’t have a problem with this
If Nurse was a free agent and going to sign tomorrow, what would his price range be?
Obviously taking in his minutes played, points, comparable etc.
I’d look at the recent Romanov contract as comparison?
6.5 mil
$8M
Based on the rumored Marchand AAV ($5.33 million), I don’t see how the Panthers make the cap without trading Rodrigues.
Unless there are easy performance bonus clauses in the first year of the contract instead of signing bonuses.
— Hope the Bouch 4 years isn’t an omen for McD
— the end is nigh if they can’t reup max him
— I mean yeah they have a few more kicks in can but a 4 year deal would really suck IMO.
I would not be surprised if McDavid said “give me the same as Leo”
Wait, was that a day dream?? Could happen if agents and union were not pushing him as hard as they can.
Stauffer has been talking 4 or 5 year deal for weeks and justifies his guess based Judd Moldaver’s history.
Honestly, is McD only signs for 4 years, so be it. He deserves anything and everything.
The 80s superstars didn’t play here past 8+ years, why should he?
They didn’t because a greedy owner sold them.
They would have had the money been there.
They were sold, it should be different this time. The fact it probably isn’t is the end of this organizations relevance.
Sad, thanks Gary.
No movement clauses on Bouchard’s contract.
The Panthers abuse PED’s,Narcotics and now i think they’re outright circumventing the cap. With off shore accounts hidden behind the owner’s billionaire friends and digital currency like Bitcoin it couldn’t be easier to hide an extra few million for Ekblad & Bennett off the books. You think Gary gives a $#%!? They could get caught red handed and he’d assign Colon Campbell to go investigate his own son and he’d do it with a straight face.
I like the way Snrub thinks.
Anyone still believe the league wanted “parity”
Why is nhl ok with a contract that goes to 43.
See below. If it’s front loaded or has big signing bonuses, they won’t get away with it. Marchand just may be an idiot who doesn’t understand that he has to play it out to get the full salary.
What if the Panthers’ dgaf about the rule of law, knowing that the judicial branch is in their pocket?
Won’t they just use LTIR, like the Carey Price and Shea Weber contracts? You can even trade those contracts. Which, given where the cap is going might even be an asset and not a liability.
Marchand doesn’t have to play it out though. At age 41 he can just say his continuously growing nose is now blocking his vision and its no longer safe for him to continue to play. He goes on LTIR for 2-3 years and gets the rest of his money.
Florida trades his contract to a rebuilding team for a 3rd and the NHL front office rejoices.
And if the Oilers tried this, there would be an investigation and draft picks going to Calgary.
The league is completely bent.
I think its very possivle that in 10 years the Panthers organization will be in the Mark McGuire / Lance Armstrong category of shameful champions and the hockey world will look back at this era of Oilers hockey in a very different light.
Can’t see it. The league is complicit. Who would look?
Will have to see the terms of Marchand contract and what CBA rules apply. Florida may have done this knowing full well that Marchand can retire before the end without incurring cap hits beyond.
If it’s front loaded, or signing bonuses beyond the first year, then the hit stays no matter when he retires. If none of those things happen, he can retire when he wants but then they don’t have to pay him or incur cap hit. The latter wouldn’t benefit him, unless he truly intends to play until he’s 43, so it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for him to sign this because it’s not guaranteed money.
As this offseason progresses, I become more pessimistic that the McD Oilers will ever win a Cup.
Miles to go, chin up good sir.
Me too
When you count up all the ghastly mistakes from ChiaPete, Holland, Jackson, and Bowman in the previous 10 years it’s truly embarrassing, yet not surprising this has happened.
There were certainly some mistakes Reinhart for 16&33 overall, Hall trade, Lucic and Nurse contracts. Some over pays on deadline deals. Nothing overly debilitating and not the reason we’re in this position, the number one challenge any GM has with this team is simply this:
Drai = $14M
Mc = $12.5M
Bouch = $10.5M
Nurse = $9.25M
Total = $46.25M
% of cap = 48%
Essentially impossible to ice a balanced team. Huge sacrifices need to be made in other areas i.e. Savoie and Podz on 2nd line, $3.6M combined in goal, league min on 4th line.
With Mc new deal starting in 2026-2027, it will be 2031 before the cap catches up to those contracts and have the space to ice a balanced team. By then McDrai will be around Ovechkin’s age when he won first and only cup.
— well at least I’m deep agent causing chaos in leaf land.
—“Bennett would look so good in leafs uniform and he says he likes traditional hockey markets”
— “McD wants to come home and play with his buddy Matthews”
—. Haha : I tell them now Austin one foot out the door. Piss poor asset management: I’m loving it!
— But but Toronto is the centre of hockey universe. Everyone wants to play here …
I don’t care about the Leafs, their fans or the centre of the hockey universe. Their shortcomings do not make me feel better about our Oilers
Well, off-season optimism and pessimism are not the best predictors of the season. Florida looks tough, but like everybody they need to stay healthy to go long.
Bouch at 10.5 x 4? Meh, I don’t mind the cap but it should have been 8. Bowman needs to watch what Zito is doing, there will be no cap value if they have to pay him and Connor 20M extra in 4 years
He’s made almost a third of what Ekblad has and juice master made the league straight from his draft
I suppose Zito has some Cups as leverage
Oilers players need to watch what the Florida players are doing. What’s Bowman supposed to do … walk away when his star players refuse to take home team discounts?
Bowman must have a plan but. Florida has a lot of their top players locked in for 5 years and there’s only 4 over 8M not counting Bob. When he comes off they will have say 4M from that and what ever the cap raises. Ugly
Obviously we have no idea how the negotiations progress, but it’s clear that the Oilers are paying more for their players than the Panthers are. The Oilers are getting little to no discounts. This should be part of the discussions between GM and players/agents.
My gut says they aren’t presented team friendly deals. Because Jackson. It’s a player friendly environment. Nobody’s taking discounts.
You think Bouchard would have signed for leas than Nurse? 10-11 mil was the predicted number for months.
SS clearly said the term doesn’t create value for the team. And he’s right.
Yes, my bad. I read it as 8 million not 8 year term.
No one said that, but that’s just another problem with the Nurse contract.
This contract seems more player friendly than team friendly. The Jeff Jackson relationships/conflicts of interest seem to create slightly more player friendly contracts and one can anticipate more of the same for the McDavid contract. These players won’t be on team friendly deals. McDavid will be something like 4 x 16.5 or 17.5 following this pattern.
I literally don’t understand how Vegas is able to get away with this. If Pietrangelo is on IR, they still have to ice a cap compliant team come playoffs. And they are trying to get Andersson? The only way this makes sense is if Hertl is going the other way
Pietrangelo’s mysterious injury that has him on LTRI already, but barely kept him out of any games last season and none in the playoffs.
How’s that investigation in the oilers going Gary?
9 mil added with shedding Roy. They had 2.6 cap space before.
So 6.4 roughly over.
8.8 for Pietrangelo. He would have to miss nearly the entire year, I think, for them to be cap compliant.
And they still need to pay for another D to replace him for the time being, and he won’t be free.
This a Dallas style strategy, all O, no D
Really don’t understand how they do this without getting rid of more players.
Such a joke. Stepping away from hockey just before Jul 1 after playing most of the season and playoffs? This is not an ltir eligible reason.to get cap relief. Sun belt teams play by different rules
Disagree completely. If you read the releases, the injuries (which they stated with detail are very serious and life debilitating.
This is essentially a retirement due to injury.
Let’s also not forget the changes to LTIR coming. Transition rules are not out so do not know if they will apply for this season but they will for next season.
LTIR relief will be limited to league average salary unless there is certainty the player will not be back for regular season or playoffs.
Pietro has taken himself out of the Olympics. This is legit.
He’s regressing but still a legit top 4 lost.
They still have Stone to go to LTIR, so Andersson should be easy to accommodate.
Right on cue … Pietro is on the LTIR with a long term injury. He’ll be making a miraculous recovery sometime around late March.
So Marner is a Vegan for the next 8 years ($12M AAV). I wonder what they gave up in that trade?
Marchand re-signing with Florida… Next year feels like a throwaway year – that team is unbeatable.
Agreed. The only way they lose is the way lost three years ago: injuries.
Well they have been remarkably healthy for their last two playoffs.
PEDs can do that for a professional athlete, just sayin.
6 years for a 37 year old. I was hoping they would do something stupid like this
They don’t care about the extra years. They want to be a dynasty team that wins 3-4 Cups in a row. Immortality.
Our top players just want to get paid as much as they can, cause they’re worried about blowback from the players union or some other such nonsense.
When they said they want to bring tampering charges to make an example they clearly meant to say tampering charges against a Canadian team
It amazes me how many players want to play in Vegas with how Vegas treats its players.
Pays them well and always tries everything to win? In a hell of an interesting town?
Sounds pretty great.
Most of these guys don’t seem to want a quiet existence in one or two towns for their career. Might have to adjust that frame of reference.
And live in relative anonymity, which a lot of players prefer.
So we overpayed and got term on the bottom 6 forward and we got half the term our franchise d. That makes sense
I have a post on here that is “awaiting approval”. I’ve never seen that before. Is that something that comes up when certain keywords are used, am I flagged personally, is it random? Strange
Prediction:
McD also signs for 3-4 years.
If the Oilers don’t win the next 3-4 years Bouchard and McD are gone.
Yeah, looks like its McMercenary.
More like McJudgment. The Oilers’ management pooped away the best years of McD’s career, and he’s calling it out. I have a better feeling with the new crew.
McDavid doesn’t owe anyone max term contracts. He already signed one with us.
He doesn’t owe anything but a team first guy that wants to win takes the 8 years, otherwise go be a mercenary…
I’m slightly more optimistic and he signs so that he ends his contract same time as Drai. So that would be 6 years I think?
You might be right. I think it’s more to do with them being competitive
That’s a very expensive contract for Bouch without the term. Florida signs everyone and shaves some cap, we pay that little bit extra
And they wonder why they can’t win.
Eh. Apples to oranges. Bouchard had RFA years plus he has been nickel and dimed by Holland’s bridge deals and over ripening strategy.
Don’t RFA years come cheaper than UFA years?
To be fair, Bouchard is a much better player than Bennett and Ekblad.
He makes more mistakes then both of them combined, that’s for sure. Otherwise great offence, and pretty good defence during the playoffs, leading to the final few games.
I have a bad feeling McDavid’s next contract is going to be 3-4 years.
What kind of money is Marchand looking for?
4x $10.5 for Bouchard. Thoughts?
A win for both sides IMO.
Pure value for that deal but, before the Dobson signing, that AAV may have been available for 8 years.
Bouchard is certainly with more than $1MM more than Dobson.
The speculation yesterday was $9.5 * 4.
I’m not seeing any discounts for the Oilers this offseason.
Should have got more term at that price. Very good deal for Bouchard.
Bowman can’t seem to win on value or term.
Isn’t there an RFA year in there? If this is our cup window, the purpose of the 4 year would have been to reduce AAV.
Won’t gripe about it because he earned it, but it is certainly a contrast to the more team friendly deal Ekblad took so that his team could add another piece
Two RFA years.
Ekblad deal isn’t really comparable as he’s already finished and 8 year big money deal, is already at the end of his prime and starting to regrsss and this contract is for almost fully regression years.
Ekblad is finished? He’s 29. Nurse is 30, Ekholm is 35. I’m not following.
And the PEDs use will keep him strong for years to come.
Not quite: shorter term = higher AAV, longer term = lower AAV.
Not in an inflationary cap environment.
That logic applies to pure UFA years. But in the case of 2 RFA years, the AAV should be lower for a 4 year deal compared to an 8.
Love it. Unless Puckpedia is not up to date, there aren’t any NMC or NTCs in the deal despite being eligible in years 3 and 4. To me, that’s a bigger deal than the term. Cap hit is about where I thought it would be, though it’s always going to be too high
I wouldn’t be keen on signing Boeser. A slow shooter with limited two-way ability isn’t what I believe will push this team over the hump. Similar to Skinner last year, I think this would be indicative of a management group that’s either failing to identify the problem or not targeting the right solutions.
The Wild traded for Tarasenko. Would they do that if they had Boeser locked up?
I’d rather have tarasenko and his deal than what Boeser is likely to get
6.1 million AAV for Ekblad. Nurse’s contract is an abomination.
Look forward to tuning in for Gregor telling us that Florida don’t get discount contracts
Ekblad up at Puckpedia 6.1 x8
6.25 x8
Big win for steroids on that one
18 players 4.9M in cap
That is a pretty reasonable deal for the Panthers. They basically keep the band together for another five seasons (Bob is the only notable UFA in the next five years afaik).
Pretty impressive. I could definitely see them winning another cup or two over that period.
Zito is definitely in the top tier of GMs. Still blows my mind that the Oilers picked famous hockey man over Zito.
Given he’s in prime and took 1.4M less sure is
No Tax in Florida really helps.
It does some, but it’s not a huge difference. He wanted to stay so he took a pay cut is the bottom line, don’t see that often from a 29YO assistant cpt 2 time Cup winner. Players sign in New York and California and they have high taxes
When the cap jumps again they are going to have money with their top 6 and top 4 locked in at 10M and under and Bob will be off the books
I hope Connor signs at 14.5M
Zito wasn’t in the Guide and Record book.
Good ol’ Juicebox.
Boeser is a 50 point player idk why he’s so highly touted
It’s the goals.
Money dependent; with the passing ability the Oiler posses, a scorer like Boesar could be huge.
is he better than Jeff Skinner?
(not suggesting the Oilers sign Skinner)
Can he skate as fast or faster than Jeff Skinner?
Hoping for Ehlers, scared about a Boeser contract. Mangiapane could be a good pickup for much less.
Wonder how much we offer Jake Allen?
Either of Ehlers or Boeser would be equally good at probably the same cap hit, whatever that might be. I’ve always hated Mangiapane so he’s most likely a great fit with Frederic on the third line and I’m hoping Tomasek is a revelation 3c for Edmonton as well Philp at 4c both RHC’s. If they do decide on Allen, I can’t see them paying him more than Skinner’s $2.6M.
I like Ehlers, but he’ll be 30, is broken and small
Ehlers is my choice as well.
Cam Fowler is in St. Louis. St. Louis desparately needs a middle 6 centre. Henrique would get to play between Neighbours and Bolduc at worst on the 3rd line, or Holloway and Kyrou.
Armstrong may have asked Cam to give Adam a call to help recruit him, and get him to waive his no move.
The consistent trend of small (300-500k) overpayments on the roster is a genuine issue. Arguments like “but it’s buriable” or “but it’s just a couple hundred thousand” don’t discount that it’s become a trend and one that has cost the team. 300-500k extra on all of Janmark, Kapanen and (likely) Frederic adds up to something around 1 to 1.5mil in cap space. In the grand scheme of things that may not seem like that much but that makes a difference in who they could target at the deadline. Further, that likely would’ve meant the difference between being able to easily match the Holloway offer sheet and not last year.
I understand that they’re paying the guys that really went to war in the postseason, but this just isn’t wise. Let him go to market and try to get this from another contender after just being on waivers. The player himself said last season that [para.] “this may be my last chance in the league”; he’s exactly the kind of player you ought to squeeze. On the bright side, at least there isn’t term to this one.
And that is just the aggregate overpay on depth players, to say nothing of all overpays on the roster, like Nurse who makes $2m too much.
And all the dead cap space from previous buy-outs.
Add it up and there’s a first line winger right there.
There must be a super deal out there for the Oilers. Somebody not on the radar, fallen out of favor, or needs moved in a hurry. Somebody that comes with low expectations but huge potential. Can they find him?
I expect the Oilers will sign Brock Boeser. I expect LT is hearing similar based on the title of today’s post.
Reading LT’s titles as tea leaves, omens of truths yet unspoken. I will sit and wonder…