Without talking about it (the word R or D). 50% plus between 4 players isn't going to work. Period. All the stats as our beloved Oilers get older and not younger will be a detriment. The Stars which were the cream of the crop along with great picks and a mix of young players/talent ( great drafting) did not erase that their team is older. It's hard to win, ask Pavelski, don't think anyone wants to see Drai in this position. Oiler for life at the ripe age of 38, take less.
It's not simply how much your top four earners make that determines if you can win. Its how you distribute all your cap space in response to that amount. The Stars for example are paying Benn and Seguin almost $9M more than the Oilers are paying Hyman and Nuge yet the Oiler pair are providing as much towards winning as the Star's pair.
No one is going to dispute that the cap will be tight for 2025-26 and to a lesser degree the 2026-27 season. But if the Oilers were to sign McDavid and Draisaitl for $27-28M as I expect, there are certainly options to make it work while not really impacting the team all that much. The key is to make smart decisions with the contracts for Bouchard, Holloway and Broberg.
By the way, with the cap at $97M, McDavid at $14.2M, Draisaitl at $13.3M, Nurse at $9.25M and Bouchard at $9.5M the Oilers top 4 salaries would be at 47.7% of the cap. In 2015-2016, Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Kessel ate up 46.1% of the cap. Add in Horqvist, Hagelin as well as Nuge, and Hyman and the numbers are almost identical.