Salary Cap Deep Dive: Edmonton Oilers
Navigating the salary cap is one of the more important tasks for any GM. Teams that can avoid total cap chaos by walking the tightrope of inking players to deals that match their value (or compensate for future value without breaking the bank) remain successful. Those that don’t see struggles and front office changes.
PHR will look at every NHL team and give a thorough look at their cap situation for the 2023-24 season. This will focus more on players who are regulars on the roster versus those who may find themselves shuttling between the AHL and NHL. All cap figures are courtesy of CapFriendly.
Edmonton Oilers
Current Cap Hit: $83,117,240 (under the $83.5MM Upper Limit)
Entry-Level Contracts
D Philip Broberg (one year, $863K)
F Dylan Holloway (one year, $925K)
Potential Bonuses
Broberg: $850K
Holloway: $650K
Holloway was certainly eased into NHL action last season as he averaged less than ten minutes a game, not necessarily ideal for an offensive-minded player. This year, the early usage is similar but they’re hoping he’ll work his way into a bigger role eventually. As things stand, he’ll be hard-pressed to reach his bonuses and is almost certainly heading for a short-term bridge deal next year that will get him a small raise but not much more.
Broberg is following a similar path as Holloway. He saw semi-regular action with the Oilers last year but in a very limited role with this season following the same trajectory to start. Again, that makes his bonuses unlikely to be reached (which is notable given how tight to the cap they are now) and puts him in line for a low-cost bridge deal as Edmonton has done with several others coming off their entry-level deals recently.
Signed Through 2023-24, Non-Entry-Level
F Connor Brown ($775K, UFA)
D Vincent Desharnais ($762.5K, RFA)
F Adam Erne ($775K, UFA)
F Warren Foegele ($2.75MM, UFA)
F Mattias Janmark ($1MM, UFA)
Potential Bonuses
Brown: $3.225MM
Brown’s contract is the cheapest on paper but will cost them the most as that bonus payout is payable once he gets to ten games played. Barring injury, he’ll get there less than two weeks from now. The pickup was a bit of a gamble since he was coming off ACL surgery but there was definitely an upside play to it. He’ll need to show that he’s healthy and productive to have a shot at commanding that much guaranteed money on a multi-year deal next summer.
Foegele has been a subject of trade speculation for a while thanks to his contract. For a third-liner, it’s not an overpayment but with their cap situation, it has been wondered if it’s a premium they can afford. With the crunch on contracts for depth players in recent years, it’s unlikely there’s a big raise coming his way but a similar-sized multi-year deal should be doable. Janmark cleared waivers last season but wound up playing a regular role most nights but is in that replacement-level range which makes it difficult for him to command much more than this bearing a breakout year. Erne just signed earlier this week on a two-way deal, a sign that his market wasn’t the strongest either.
Desharnais is a late-bloomer but is basically a sixth or seventh defender at this point of his career. His value to Edmonton is the below-minimum contract. As things stand, he might garner enough interest to get close to the $1MM mark next summer but will need to be in the lineup more often than not to have a shot at that.
Signed Through 2024-25
D Evan Bouchard ($3.9MM, RFA)
D Cody Ceci ($3.25MM, UFA)
F Leon Draisaitl ($8.5MM, UFA)
F Ryan McLeod ($2.1MM, RFA)
F Derek Ryan ($900K, UFA)
Technically, Draisaitl is the second-best threat on the Oilers but that certainly doesn’t mean that he’d be a second option elsewhere. On most teams, he’d be their top-line center and their go-to scorer. Edmonton has benefitted significantly with his contract, one that is significantly below market. He has been one of the top scorers in the league in the past decade (second only to his teammate) and between that and the fact he plays a premium position, Draisaitl is in a position to command a record-setting contract on the open market, ahead of the $13.25MM that Auston Matthews received earlier this year from Toronto. However, if he wants to stay in Edmonton, it seems like he might have to settle for a bit less than that.
McLeod is one of the players who had to take the cheap one-year deal coming off his entry-level pact although that swung the leverage hammer to him as he had arbitration rights this summer. He improved on his numbers from 2021-22 despite playing in 14 fewer games which helped him jump past the $2MM mark. If he continues to improve, his value could be closer to $3.5MM next time around. Ryan receiving a two-year deal was a surprise considering he turns 37 in December. If he gets another contract, it’ll be around this price tag while Edmonton will be looking to keep this roster spot as close to the minimum as possible.
Draisaitl shouldn’t be the only big-ticket deal Edmonton will have to contend with in 2025. Bouchard had a breakout second half and a strong playoff performance, making his bridge deal more expensive than the Oilers likely expected. If he continues on that trajectory, he could more than double his current price tag on his next deal. Ceci’s second season with Edmonton wasn’t as good as his first but he still held down a top-four role. As long as that’s the case, they’ll get decent value but history has shown he’s typically better off in the fifth spot on the depth chart which doesn’t help his open-market value which, at this point, is probably close to what he’s making now.
Signed Through 2025-26
D Mattias Ekholm ($6MM, UFA)*
F Evander Kane ($5.125MM, UFA)
D Brett Kulak ($2.75MM, UFA)
F Connor McDavid ($12.5MM, UFA)
G Stuart Skinner ($2.6MM, UFA)
*-Nashville is retaining an additional $250K per season on Ekholm’s contract.
McDavid had held the record for the highest AAV in NHL history until Nathan MacKinnon passed that this year. It certainly feels like it’s only a matter of time before he reclaims that title, potentially passing Draisaitl to re-take the crown. A three-time Hart Trophy winner as NHL MVP, McDavid has led the league in scoring in three straight years and five out of the last seven. He plays a premium position and he’ll only be 29 when his next contract begins. That means a max-term deal (eight years if he re-signs, seven if he was to go elsewhere) is basically a lock. As is the case with Draisaitl, if the two want to stay together in Edmonton, McDavid will also need to leave money on the table to do so given their cap situation.
Kane impressed after joining Edmonton midway through the 2021-22 campaign and was off to a good start last year before being slowed by a lacerated wrist. If he can get back to that level of performance, they’ll do well with this deal but it’s fair to say that he has struggled out of the gate. He’ll be 35 when this deal is up so he might be hard-pressed to beat this contract at that time.
Ekholm has been a steady 30-point defender who logs heavy minutes for basically the better part of the last eight years. He’s not a number one option but a capable number two or a high-end number three. This contract falls in line nicely with either of those two roles, for now at least. He’ll be 36 in the final season so that could be a small concern given his heavy workload. Again, with his age, it’s difficult to see him beating this price on his next contract. Kulak does well in a limited role but while he can handle top-four minutes, he often struggles with the extra workload. That makes this contract a bit on the expensive side and if they need to try to trim more from their payroll, Kulak could be a strong candidate to be the cap casualty.
Most of Skinner’s first full NHL season went quite well. He was an All-Star and it looked like they had an in-house solution to their long-term goalie struggles. The playoffs were another story as he struggled mightily and his first few outings this year haven’t been the greatest. With the current backup market, as long as he’s a league-average option, they’ll get a reasonable return so this contract should hold up relatively well over time.
Atlantic Notes: Johnson, Guhle, Van Pottelberghe
Sabres defenseman Erik Johnson told Peter Baugh of The Athletic (subscription link) that there were three or four other teams that had “intense talks” about a contract for him this summer with his former team in Colorado not being among those once the bidding started to go up. The 35-year-old inked a one-year, $3.25MM deal of the opening day of free agency, a surprising price tag for someone who had just eight assists in 63 games last season. Johnson already has a goal with his new team but is logging a career-low 15:13 per night this season.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic Division:
- Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle will return to the lineup tonight after missing the past four games with an upper-body injury, the team announced (Twitter link). The 21-year-old is in his second NHL season and logged more than 20 minutes a night in his rookie campaign. With David Savard out of the lineup for at least the next six weeks, Guhle is likely to play a big role once again for a while. Gustav Lindstrom will be a healthy scratch to make room for Guhle’s return.
- Red Wings prospect Joren van Pottelberghe is expected to sign a three-year deal beginning next season with HC Lugano in the Swiss League, reports Watson’s Klaus Zaugg. The 26-year-old was a fourth-round pick back in 2015 (110th overall) but has yet to sign with Detroit. As the NHL doesn’t have a direct player transfer agreement with Switzerland, the Red Wings will continue to hold his rights indefinitely. He has a 2.49 GAA and a .914 SV% over parts of eight seasons in Switzerland’s top division so it’s possible Detroit will want to bring him over one day but that might be a little further down the road now.
Connor Clifton Receives Two-Game Suspension
12:30 PM: The verdict is in for Clifton and the Department of Player Safety announced (video link) that Clifton has received a two-game suspension. He’ll be eligible to return on Friday in the back half of a home-and-home set against Philadelphia. From the video:
Clifton finishes a high, hard check that cuts in front of Hischier’s core making his head the main point of contact on a hit when head contact was avoidable… If Clifton wants to deliver this hit, Clifton must stay low and choose an angle that hits through Hischier’s shoulder and core, rather than one that makes the head the main point of contact.
9:20 AM: Following a hit that saw him ejected from last night’s game in New Jersey, the league announced that defenseman Connor Clifton will have a disciplinary hearing today.
With just over four minutes remaining in the first period, Clifton hit Devils center Nico Hischier up high near the boards and, after video review, was assessed a match penalty for an illegal check to the head. That carries an automatic league review and upon that review, they’ve determined to proceed with a hearing.
Hischier missed the rest of the period, came back for the second, but did not return. Following the game, head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters including Ryan Novozinsky of the Newark Star-Ledger that they decided to hold out the captain for precautionary reasons and will re-evaluate him today.
The Sabres are back in action on Sunday against Colorado so any suspension, if one is coming, will need to be announced by then. Clifton has not been suspended previously in his NHL career.
Sabres Recall Devin Cooley; Eric Comrie Out Week-To-Week
The Sabres have been carrying three goalies on their roster all season long but injuries have struck, resulting in them needing to bring up another one as the team announced that they’ve recalled Devin Cooley from AHL Rochester.
The recall was needed with Eric Comrie exiting yesterday’s game against New Jersey in the second period with a lower-body injury. GM Kevyn Adams told reporters including Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News (Twitter link) that Comrie will be out on a week-to-week basis.
Meanwhile, opening night starter Devon Levi has only skated once in the last nine days as he’s dealing with a lower-body issue of his own; Adams indicated that they’re hopeful that he can return to practice on Tuesday. Buffalo also has veteran third-stringer Dustin Tokarski under contract but he suffered an upper-body injury during training camp that he hasn’t recovered from so Cooley is the next player up.
The 26-year-old is in his first season with the Sabres organization after spending the last three seasons in Nashville’s system. He has played in four games with the Americans this year, posting a 3.46 GAA with a .903 SV%. Cooley is set to serve as the backup to Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for Buffalo’s next game on Sunday against Colorado.
Hurricanes Assign Dylan Coghlan To The AHL
The Hurricanes have made a roster move, announcing that they’ve assigned defenseman Dylan Coghlan to Springfield of the AHL. As Carolina doesn’t have its own affiliate, they’ve loaned him back to St. Louis’.
The 25-year-old showed some upside a couple of years ago with Vegas, eventually making him the incentive that Carolina received for taking on the final year of Max Pacioretty‘s contract back in July 2022. However, Coghlan didn’t play much last season, suiting up just 17 times while being a healthy scratch the rest of the way. That likely played a role in him clearing waivers earlier this month.
Coghlan had been recalled earlier in the week when Brett Pesce went down but he still didn’t see any action with the Hurricanes. He has suited up five times for the Thunderbirds so far, picking up a goal and an assist, and will now have a chance to add to those numbers.
For the time being, Carolina has just six healthy defensemen on the roster which is unlikely to be the case for too long. However, they’re now off until Monday night so they can wait until then to announce a recall whether it’s Coghlan or someone else. In the meantime, clearing Coghlan’s $850K off the books – even if it’s just for a couple of days – will give Carolina a little bit of extra cap flexibility to work with.
Bruins Place Milan Lucic On LTIR, Recall Oskar Steen
The purpose for Boston’s paper transactions that were made last night (the recalls of Jakub Zboril and Mason Lohrei) has now been revealed. The Bruins announced that winger Milan Lucic was placed on LTIR, meaning he’ll miss at least 10 games and 24 days. Taking his place on the roster is center Oskar Steen.
Yesterday’s recalls (which have since been reversed) got the Bruins within roughly $82K of the cap ceiling; the gap between that and Lucic’s $1MM cap hit is how much LTIR room they created. That wasn’t enough space for them to bring up two players but it gave them more flexibility in who they could afford to recall.
Lucic is dealing with a lower-body injury that was originally expected to keep him out for a couple of weeks. This timeline is a bit further out but is arguably more beneficial for Boston as it allows them to get Steen onto the roster as a replacement player. The 35-year-old is in his first season back with the Bruins after signing with them in the summer and he was off to a decent start with two assists and eight hits in his first four games before the injury. He’ll be eligible to return on November 18th against Montreal, relays Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic (Twitter link).
As for Steen, the 25-year-old has made 26 appearances at the top level over the past three seasons, notching three goals and four assists along the way. He cleared waivers earlier this month and has averaged a point per game in his first five appearances with AHL Providence this season.
Tomáš Plekanec Announces Retirement
1001-game NHL veteran Tomáš Plekanec has announced his retirement from the game, via Czech journalist Matěj Hejda. Citing health issues as the reason for his decision, Plekanec ends his playing career several years removed from his last NHL game, after three full, highly productive seasons playing in the Czech Extraliga.
A third-round pick of the Canadiens at the 2001 NHL draft, the versatile center would become one of the faces of the Canadiens franchise in the team’s post-lockout era. After back-to-back AHL All-Star campaigns, Plekanec broke into the league at the age of 23, scoring 29 points in 67 games.
Early in his career, Plekanec was defined by how quickly he climbed the Canadiens’ depth chart.
In his age-24 season, Plekanec scored 20 goals and 47 points, beginning to establish himself as a true top-six center in the NHL.
In his age-25 season, Plekanec had soared to 29 goals and 69 points, a performance that helped the Canadiens to the second round of the playoffs and earned him a third-place Selke Trophy vote.
In 2009-10, Plekanec had the best season of his career, scoring 25 goals and 70 points. He was the top scorer on an underdog Canadiens team that took out two heavyweight Eastern Conference contenders en route to the Conference Finals, helping the Canadiens on their deepest playoff run since their 1993 Stanley Cup championship.
That playoff run marked the beginning of a competitive era for the Canadiens that included three division titles and another run to the Eastern Conference Finals.
By 2017-18, the Canadiens’ decline had mirrored Plekanec’s fading on-ice value, and near the end of that season the Canadiens made the shocking move of trading their beloved two-way center to their arch-nemesis Toronto Maple Leafs.
Plekanec spent a short period of the following campaign with the Canadiens, a move that allowed him to play his 1,000th NHL game with the team before departing for Czechia. This season has been Plekanec’s third as captain of Rytíři Kladno, a team he has also led in scoring during that span.
Beyond just his consistently strong NHL career as a member of the Canadiens, Plekanec also had a highly respectable international career.
He represented Czechia at two World Junior Championships, eleven IIHF Men’s World Championships, and two Winter Olympics.
A valuable leader, Plekanec had the honor of captaining Czechia on multiple occasions, including at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Although a gold medal eluded him as team captain, he won the gold at the 2001 World Juniors and also took home two bronze medals and a silver at the World Championships.
Although it’s unfortunate that health issues have ended Plekanec’s career before he might have wanted to hang up his skates, he nonetheless ends his professional career with so much to be proud of.
He wasn’t the flashiest player, but he was a consistent two-way force. Sporting his signature turtleneck, Plekanec was one of the faces of the most competitive era of hockey in recent Montreal Canadiens history. We at PHR would like to extend our best wishes to Plekanec and his family as he begins his retirement.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Ottawa Senators Recall Tyler Kleven, Nikolas Matinpalo
The Ottawa Senators have announced that defensemen Tyler Kleven and Nikolas Matinpalo have been recalled from the club’s AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators.
These moves have been made in the aftermath of two significant injuries that have hit the Senators’ blueline. Yesterday, it was announced that Thomas Chabot would miss significant time with a fractured hand, while defenseman Erik Brännström also suffered an injury as well.
In a corresponding move to create the necessary cap space for these recalls, CapFriendly reports that Chabot has been placed on long-term injured reserve, creating $8MM in LTIR relief for Ottawa. 
The result of this absence: the Senators have a massive number of minutes that need to be filled on their blueline.
Chabot is the club’s most highly-utilized defenseman, soaking up time at both even strength and on the power play. There’s no way what he offers the Senators can be truly replaced by any call-ups, although that’s not to say the Senators’ call-up options aren’t quality players in their own right.
Kleven, 21, is an expected call-up as he’s widely viewed as the top Senators defenseman in Belleville. The 21-year-old 2020 second-round pick got a small taste of life in the NHL at the end of last season, skating in eight games for the Senators after the conclusion of his three-year NCAA career at the University of North Dakota.
The six-foot-four, 200-pound stay-at-home blueliner excels in his own end and will be able to offer size, physicality, and shutdown ability to head coach D.J. Smith.
As for Matinpalo, he’s a player with a very different background and someone who has taken a very different path to receiving this call-up. Like Kleven, Matinpalo also offers above-average size (he’s six-foot-three, 207 pounds) as well as defensive responsibility.
But unlike Kleven, Matinpalo’s standing in the Senators organization isn’t backed by a valuable draft pick they invested in him.
The 25-year-old wasn’t a high draft pick like Kleven, instead he’s an undrafted player who only joined the organization this past summer, signing his one-year entry-level deal after establishing himself in his home country’s Finnish Liiga for three seasons with Ässät Pori.
As a result, this recall represents a massive opportunity for Matinpalo. With Chabot injured, the right side of the Senators’ defense is relatively wide open. Artem Zub is still dealing with an upper-body injury and did not travel with the Senators for their two-game road trip.
As a result, Matinpalo is positioned to make his NHL debut against the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight, and he has just two healthy players ahead of him on the team’s right-shot depth chart: Travis Hamonic and Jacob Bernard-Docker.
With some strong play as well as some luck, Matinpalo stands a chance of playing a bigger role in the NHL than anyone could have anticipated, at least for one game, which would be a major opportunity for him to showcase his skills.
While these Senators’ injuries are hardly ideal, they do offer opportunities for two less-experienced Senators defensemen to get into NHL contests.
Ottawa’s competitive chances have undoubtedly been reduced by these injuries, but the silver lining of this situation is that the Senators now has the chance to evaluate the progress of two younger blueliners at the NHL level.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Evening Snapshots: Athanasiou, Bruins, Comrie
One of the most notable missing pieces in the team’s win tonight against the Vegas Golden Knights was Chicago Blackhawks’ forward, Andreas Athanasiou, who was a healthy scratch. Signed to a two-year, $8.5 MM extension after last year’s season, Athanasiou has not gotten off to a strong start this year with Chicago (Tweet Link).
Last season, as the team’s regular season schedule came to a close, Athanasiou was tied for the team lead in goal-scoring with Taylor Raddysh, earning him an extension over the offseason. In seven games so far this year, Athanasiou only has three assists, which is still good for sixth on the team in point production but has not incorporated the goal-scoring production the team is accustomed to.
There is no doubt that the relatively high salary the Blackhawks gave him over the summer had to do with the team reaching the salary cap floor for the season, but the team should still be seeking more production out of his play. In any case, even on a rebuilding team in Chicago, Athanasiou will need to raise his level of play to earn a full-time spot in the Blackhawks lineup.
Other snapshots:
- To comply with the salary cap, Mark Divver of the New England Hockey Journal reported that all the transactions made today by the Boston Bruins were ‘paper’ transactions. For those that don’t know, ‘paper’ transactions are simply callups and reassignments that qualify for salary cap compliance, but the players included likely will not see any minutes with their respective teams.
- In tonight’s game against the New Jersey Devils, the Buffalo Sabres announced that goaltender, Eric Comrie, will not return to the game after suffering a lower-body injury. It is unfortunate news for the Sabres after Comrie has had to start three of the last four games due to an injury from regular starting netminder, Devon Levi. If Comrie is expected to miss a significant amount of time, Buffalo’s third-string goaltender, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will likely see the majority of starts for the foreseeable future.
Poll: Did The League Make The Right Choice On The Draft?
A few days ago, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported that a majority of the teams that make up the National Hockey League had voted to decentralize the NHL draft, making it so teams would no longer appear on the floor of the draft venue. Players would no longer get to put on their team jerseys, as well as meet team staff immediately on the podium.
Originally, the current draft format began in 1963, beginning at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal for 10 years, until it began moving around to various locations (still inside Montreal) until its first visit to Toronto in 1985. In 1986, and for the next 37 years, the NHL Draft would be located at a specific team’s home arena, still carrying the original draft etiquette and procedures.
Although the 2024 NHL Draft in Las Vegas still does not have a designated location up to this point, it will likely be the last draft for the foreseeable future that fans are accustomed to. Unlike the NBA, MLB, and NFL drafts, the NHL has had a long history of teams making their draft selections in person, and the players trying on their new jerseys for the first time in their pro careers.
Aside from the game itself, it was one important and notable difference that the NHL had to differentiate itself from the other professional sports leagues in North America, making the draft a more entertaining event overall. The league has not announced any specifics on the upcoming change, meaning the fans are still in the dark about how much similarity it will have to the other professional leagues.
Nevertheless, from a fan perspective, we at PHR would like to know how the actual consumers of the game perceive the change. Vote below!
Did The League Make The Right Choice On The Draft?
-
No 74% (563)
-
Yes 26% (195)
Total votes: 758