Confirmed with Link: Draisaitl re-signs 8y 8.5M AAV

[Supermassive]

I'm over the moon.

So glad the days if losing guys are over. We can actually keep our elite players.

Same here - I'm a little giddy. It's been almost 25 years (save Pronger Year) since we've been a threat. Drai is a huge piece of that top four of McD, Lars and Talbot that will keep this team near the top. Pay your MVPs, leave no room for guessing.

Amazing that he has progressed so soon, but that's the McD effect - top raw talents will develop much faster alongside generational players. Gretzky helped make everyone better, so will Connor. Now we just need a riverboat gambler on the blue line with some Connor chemistry. Auditions start this fall.

 

[Tarus]

Ouch, tough contract. Oilers taking on quite a bit of risk with this one.

Hopefully Drai can continue to evolve his game and prove he's worth it over the long haul. Pretty much confirmed he's going to have to prove he can carry a line on his own very soon, because the Oiler's depth(which wasn't good to begin with) is going to take a hit for a few years.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Yep, I agree with the bolded.
Saw a poster on the Oilers reddit post this as well:

$8.5M is a lot for a 1W.
$8.5M is a lot for a 2C.
$8.5 is probably fair for a player who can take on either role, excel with the best player in the world, pick up slack in case of injury, and might even be a 1C in his own right.

Draisaitl is a #1C on many on other teams in the NHL, you can't blame him for not being able to pass ***ing McDavid.

 

[McAsuno]

So correct me if I'm wrong, but you're say the key ingredient is the winning environment? I hope that's true. Off the top of my head, the other equivalent I can think of in Jeff Skinner also struggled on a bad team, and then you have Toews who was more developed/older and Bobby Ryan who I would agree seems to have had more issues with drive than Drai (though I always felt this was overblown for Ryan much like Kessel).

Still, I think young players struggle to continue to develop all the time. I absolutely do not expect our entire team to take a step forward in development. There will 100% be disappointments. Even teams like the Penguins and Hawks, who seem to be wizards at development, fail to get the most out of some players. (see: Olli Maatta(health), Trevor Daley with Chi, Pittsburghs Russian pickup Plotnikov etc).

Nothing to do but wait and see though and I agree that I'd rather be optimistic than pessimistic even if I am not thrilled with this offseason at all. Lots of talent still on the team to look forward to.

I also hope we see Drai develop even more of a mean streak. If he does, him paired with McDavid would be unstoppable.

Winning is a key ingredient. Over the last decade, the team did nothing but lose as the laughingstock of the league. That created a toxic environment among the players and in the room. Top UFA's didn't want to sign here either. Hell, players like Hall kept getting the 'Cancer in the room' which was totally unjustified. Then the management signed **** poor veterans like Belanger who cared way more about $$$ than actually about the team.

Now when you look at the Oilers, teams realize they aren't an easy 2 points. Even Shawn Thornton said the Oilers are the toughest team in the league a few days ago. But before, the Oilers were a soft team that stood and watch as guys like Hall would get ragdolled by the opponents. Now? OEL can land a dirty hit on Hendricks, and Kassian swoops in on him immediately.
Granted, young players do struggle and their growth can stagnant, but we don't know for sure with the case of Draisaitl and many other Oiler players. Draisaitl was labeled as a bust after his rookie season, and that Bennett was better. Yet Bennett can barely hold Draisaitl's jockstrap now.

I'm personally just gonna be optimistic and enjoy the upcoming season. Last season felt like Heaven after the long miserable past years of Oilers hockey we all had to dreadfully suffer from.

 

[McAsuno]

Draisaitl is a #1C on many on other teams in the NHL, you can't blame him for not being able to pass ***ing McDavid.

Of course, which makes the point of the post even more sweeter. We have our two best players locked for a long time.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Of course, which makes the point of the post even more sweeter. We have our two best players locked for a long time.

Oh yeah, this team's core is locked up long term (Klefa and Larsson in there too) and should be the making of highly competitive for the length of that term.

 

[bucks_oil]

This still scares me.

I've watched every game in recent years (as well as a lot of other teams), and I'm not sure I've seen a player with as low of a valley (slow, invisible) and as high of a peak (dominant) - both for stretches of 15-20 games with no average in between. He was bad for a BIG stretch of games.

Hopefully he gets more consistent and continues where he left off. If he does, this contract is great. If not, it could be a huge mistake.

I've watched pretty much every game since 2010. I really don't get what you are referring to.

Draisaitl's weakest statistical stretch last year was 7 games pointless, with -2 and 8 SOG during that timeframe. That one streak (playing with Pou on the third line) is pretty much what kept him from being over PPG on the season.

After that his longest pointless streak was only 4 games long.

 

[Hockeyholic]

Too much. Chiarelli taken to the cleaners.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Too much. Chiarelli taken to the cleaners.

What should he have done?

 

[McAsuno]

Oh yeah, this team's core is locked up long term (Klefa and Larsson in there too) and should be the making of highly competitive for the length of that term.

Even Klefbom and Larsson will get better which is great. I would say they're highly underrated like the Canes duo.

 

[Kamus]

I thought its going to be 8x8, so .5 million isnt a big difference. Where I think most Oiler fans that are worried about this contract are coming from are the OTHER terrible contracts given out to the other players (i.e. Lucic and Russel). I would rather pay Lucic 7x4 years then that god awaful 6x7 years, and pay russel 5 million for two years. These will be the contracts that keep the Oilers down not the Drai one.

 

[McDrai]

To put this into perpective, Hall, Nuge, and Eberle cost us 6 mil per season and Mcdavid and Draisaitl are waaaay better than those 3 combined. For 3 mil per season extra for 8 years I think it is fantastic!

 

[Old Boys Club]

Bit higher than I thought but I'm alright with it. I disagree with a few other contracts (Russell) but this one I don't mind. RNH is gone but he would have been anyways regardless of Drai. Now the onus is on Chia, Gretzky et al to find players through the draft to fill the rest of the depth chart.

 

[Pointteen]

I wish it was 7.5. Combined 20 million sounds better. But very happy.

 

[ThePhoenixx]

I'm over the moon.

So glad the days if losing guys are over. We can actually keep our elite players.

The younger generation may not know how important this statement is to fans.

No more losing the Gretzky's Messier's, Weight's, Coffey's, etc. to the world for draft picks. We won't have to watch the New York Oilers win the cup again.

We have a super rich owner who gives out the biggest signing bonus he can to the best player in the world. An owner who is developing the whole arena area in to an Eden of the North.

Good times.

 

[Hockeyholic]

What should he have done?

Not signed him to a ridiculous contract. He's not better than Tarasenko or Scheifele.

 

[SDig14]

What should he have done?

It clearly would have been better to save 500K a year and make him wait till the middle of October.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Not signed him to a ridiculous contract. He's not better than Tarasenko or Scheifele.

Well he's a center and Tarasenko's not. And Scheifele's contract isn't an example, it's an outlier.

If you go to Draisaitl's camp with Scheifele, he retorts with O'Reilly's contract from the same year.

Again, you can't tell Draisaitl how much he'll get paid.

 

[Gord]

We have a super rich owner who gives out the biggest signing bonus he can to the best player in the world. An owner who is developing the whole arena area in to an Eden of the North.

Good times.

try not to polish the Katz turd too much.

he's the same owner who drove the team into the gutter for years.
the team was only pulled out of it when they lucked into McDavid.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

It clearly would have been better to save 500K a year and make him wait till the middle of October.

Does that save the Oilers $500K? And how do you react to letting Draisaitl sit over $500K or the other teams with potential offersheets?

 

[redgrant]

What should he have done?

5 million a year tops even though he had zero leverage. - Hater logic.

 

[ThePhoenixx]

try not to polish the Katz turd too much.

he's the same owner who drove the team into the gutter for years.
the team was only pulled out of it when they lucked into McDavid.

Past is the past. I am talking about the present and future. Was anything I said untrue? You can stew in the past or have fun in the now and beyond.

 

[Soundwave]

try not to polish the Katz turd too much.

he's the same owner who drove the team into the gutter for years.
the team was only pulled out of it when they lucked into McDavid.

If we "lucked" into McDavid we equally "unlucked" into Yakupov and Nugent Hopkins and even Taylor Hall to a degree.

In the long run trying to get elite level talent through the draft was always the right move, we were never going to win anything with the Sam Gagners and Andrew Coglianos of the world leading the team.

It wasn't the linear line we thought it was going to be, but it more or less worked out in the end.

 

[Consultant]

What should he have done?

Waited until late September and saved 1 million.

 

[FlameChampion]

As mentioned I love Drai. Happy to see him for 8 years.

But not to be too negative, I really think that Chiarelli misplayed his cards here. In hindsight (which is always easy to say) I think he should of signed Draitsaitl before McDavid. I think he could of signed him for 7mil a year. By signing McDavid to his contract, contracts in the NHL got reset to a new level. After seeing the Kunetsov and Johansen deals, it was hard to see Drai signing for anything less than 8mil. Of course we all hoped it would be less but I dont think it was all that realistic.

In the end 1-1.5 mil isnt going to cripple this team but it does show a bit of lack of foresight planning from the management team. Every million moving forward is going to help.

Moving forward, Chiarelli is going to have to be very cap minded. RNH, Lucic, Sekera, and Russell contracts arent going to help.

One thing that kinda sucks going forward is that its going to be hard for the team to retain players who play well. If Puljujarvi or Yamamoto turn into stars, its great as a fan, but with the cap, its going to be bittersweet. Its going to be like the hawks where theres a ton of turnover every year because two players make so much. I guess this is the by product of (hopefully maintaining) being a good team.

Oh well, least it should be an exciting next 8-9 years! which is an obvious improvement over the previous 8 years.