With due respect to Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and well, whatever other high-profile Oiler you want to name, arguably the most attention these days is on 22-year-old centre Ryan McLeod.
McLeod is the only unsigned Oiler and needs a new contract from the cash-strapped team, ideally sooner than later. That should happen.
Advertisement
McLeod is in Edmonton and participating in informal skates with teammates. He’s also scheduled to be among a group of players heading to Lloydminster to sign autographs as part of an alumni game. This doesn’t appear to be an acrimonious negotiation.
The expectation, from what I’ve been told, is the cap hit on McLeod’s second contract will either come close to or will mirror the $975,000 of his brother Michael’s. The elder McLeod signed a two-year pact with the Devils, also a second contract, last July. If I were a betting man, Ryan’s salary will probably be a notch or two lower. The new contract could also be for two years, but it appears a one-year agreement is a more likely outcome.
So, what’s the bloody hold-up, you’re probably wondering?
Not only are the Oilers trying to secure the best deal they can, but management isn’t through trying to clear up some cap space before McLeod puts pen to paper. Jesse Puljujarvi, Warren Foegele and Tyson Barrie have long been the most likely trade options. However, the market for a multi-million-dollar player isn’t exactly robust considering it’s September and most teams are at or near the cap and have their rosters largely figured out.
An inability to make a trade has dragged out McLeod’s contract from being finalized, but it shouldn’t prevent him from signing before the season starts.
Regardless of McLeod’s situation, though, the Oilers are in a pickle.
Oilers could start season with a 21-man roster
GM Ken Holland has hinted at this possibility earlier in the offseason. I’m told there’s a very strong chance this happens once McLeod signs and if a trade can’t be made.
PuckPedia and CapFriendly currently offer differing roster projections. The former presents a 22-man option. The latter has 21 players. The Oilers are over the $82.5 million salary cap in both scenarios, and that’s without McLeod and if Mike Smith and Oscar Klefbom go on LTIR — which is scheduled to happen. Suffice it to say, something has to give here.
Advertisement
Colleagues Jonathan Willis and Allan Mitchell looked at the Oilers’ cap situation recently. I’d encourage you to read their work if you haven’t already. There are ways the Oilers can get under the salary cap without making a trade. It’ll likely mean not carrying a full 23-man roster.
The organization is comfortable with that outcome, even knowing it’s not ideal. The problem is all it takes is for a couple players to get sick on the morning of a game for the Oilers to be playing shorthanded. They are at the disadvantage of being one of the few NHL teams that don’t have their AHL club within driving distance. It takes the better part of a day to get to Edmonton from Bakersfield, Calif.
One other wrench to this potential plan: having waiver-exempt players Evan Bouchard, Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway on the roster to start the season is all but a necessity. I wrote about this a year ago, but because the Oilers will be in LTIR as the season commences, they need to have players with sizable bonuses on the opening roster to maximize their LTIR pool. Otherwise, the average annual bonuses from the player’s contract get added to the salary cap when summoned from the minors.
Holloway is the least likely of the three players to make the opening roster based on merit or the depth chart. But that would mean as much as $516,667 would be added against the Oilers’ cap to Holloway’s $925,000 NHL salary upon a recall. That’s a lot of money for a team with serious cap concerns.
How does Murray fit in?
Despite all this, the Oilers signed blueliner Ryan Murray last Friday to provide some depth to their blue line.
As almost every Oilers fan knows, the match is a decade later than it could have been. The Oilers could have and perhaps should have selected Murray with the No. 1 pick in 2012. Instead, Nail Yakupov was the pick and Murray went second to Columbus.
Advertisement
Injuries have been the biggest hindrance to Murray’s career. He’s played 432 games over nine seasons in the league. A hand injury suffered in March derailed his 2021-22 season and he was scratched for Colorado’s Stanley Cup championship run.
So, while Murray is a solid veteran with perhaps some untapped promise, he hasn’t been guaranteed anything with the Oilers. A team source called him “Broberg insurance,” meaning that Broberg, a 2019 first-round pick, will be a regular unless he plays his way off the team.
The one thing working in Murray’s favour as the extra skater under a 21-man roster is this: he’s a quality NHL defenceman making the league minimum. Though the Oilers would be loath to lose someone like defenceman Dmitri Samorukov on the waiver wire, the odds are Murray is more likely to be claimed than a 23-year-old with one game of NHL experience.
Of course, the Oilers could go with 11 forwards and eight defencemen, stick with coach Jay Woodcroft’s regularly used 11-7 scheme and keep both Murray and Samorukov. They have more than a month to make such a choice, but this represents the type of difficult decision they might have to make if money remains this tight.
Still, the Oilers might add another player
How the heck does this make any sense?
Willis, my trusted colleague, recently outlined why signing a forward to a league-minimum (or slightly above) contract would be helpful to the Oilers. I’m told they’re considering doing just that — or at least giving someone a chance to earn one.
A team source said that while no formal professional contract offers have been issued, the three players the Oilers are discussing are Zach Aston-Reese, Riley Nash and Jake Virtanen.
Aston-Reese, 28, is known as an excellent defensive forward and could be a useful bottom-six contributor even if he brings little in the way of offence.
Advertisement
Nash, 33, was picked by the Oilers 21st in 2007. He could be a right-handed centre on the fourth line, a position that’s now expected to be shared by Devin Shore and Derek Ryan.
Virtanen, 26, is known as an offensive-minded winger, and Edmonton’s top six — and perhaps even top nine — is set. It’s unclear how he’d fit in on the depth chart. Virtanen was found not guilty of sexual assault in British Columbia Supreme Court in July and is trying to resume his NHL career after playing in the KHL last season.
A possible Kane wrinkle
It appears to be all quiet on the grievance front between Evander Kane and his former team, the Sharks. Don’t confuse that with there being a settlement upcoming. It sounds like both sides have dug in their heels with the Sharks determined not to pay him a cent and Kane eager to clear his name.
A Sharks win is the easiest outcome to understand. Life goes on.
A Kane win means things are much murkier.
The simplest outcome would be for Kane to be made whole. He could get back the money he lost from last season, plus the $500,000 difference in the total amount left on his Sharks contract ($21 million) and the four-year deal he signed with the Oilers in July ($20.5 million).
However, there’s the unlikely scenario he’s awarded back to the Sharks. And that could actually benefit the Oilers.
The Sharks want nothing to do with him and Kane’s San Jose contract has a three-team trade list. I’m told he’d just put the Oilers and two teams that would have no interest in acquiring him (say, Vegas and Winnipeg) on his list.
The Sharks would almost certainly be forced to trade him to the Oilers. Kane would get more money for the entirety of his contract ($21 million rather than $20.5 million). The Oilers could then try to squeeze the Sharks on salary retention so that his cap hit for the Oilers would be even lower than the $5.125 million it is now.
Again, this is probably all moot. Just something to consider.
(Photo: Isaiah J. Downing / USA Today)