Confirmed with Link: Oilers sign Connor Brown to 1-year incentive laden deal ($775K caphit, potentially $3.25M in bonuses)

[Jet Walters]

I see what you're after, but I don't think it's of course. Other teams will be utilizing their extra cap and the Oilers can certainly use all the cap they can to be a better team. If the others get more cap and you can't use yours it'll make your team weaker compared to the others. This without commenting the actual deal. I also think this is about Holland making a push for his final year, but it gets more serious and more proven if Holland makes other "one year" moves.

Other teams will be utilizing the cap increase just to keep their own players and remain around the same level. Just look at some of the teams in the Pacific we are competing with for a playoff spot.

Vegas:Marchesault/Stephenson/Martinez
Calgary: Backlund/Lindholm/Hanafin/Tanev
LA: Kopitar/Byfield/Roy/Arvidsson plus no goalie signed
Seattle: They will have some money to spend with just Beniers needing a raise. Wennberg/Eberle/Schultz ufa though.

If the Oilers can fit in Bouchard and McLeod deals that are two years, then Foegele and Brown are basically the only spots they need to fill except some bottom 6 depth like every other team. Ideally Bourgault is ready to step right into Brown’s spot on an ELC after another year of development.

 

[Drivesaitl]

and despite all this, the Oilers are one of the best teams in the league since Woodcroft took over...

hell, Vegas didn't even have a starting goaltender last year, after missing the playoffs the year before...yet still won the Cup

Regular season record means zilch. Nada. Only to get to the dance. The Oilers, a juggernaut team with the two best players in the world are only .500 in the playoffs with this coaching staff, thats it, thats all. We need stalwart legend efforts from our players just to win one round. Two years ago we one 8 playoff games. This season only 6. Whenever we face a stiff club we've fallen over and due very much to coaching strategy and player deployment. We've wasted the peak years of our legend players. Drai turning 29 at season start.

Unlike the Oilers Vegas had solid coaching, buy in, and devised schemes specific to beating us. Our coaching staff don't even plan strategy specific to series opponents. Apparently thats too much work.

 

[Soundwave]

Regular season record means zilch. Nada. Only to get to the dance. The Oilers, a juggernaut team with the two best players in the world are only .500 in the playoffs with this coaching staff, thats it, thats all. We need stalwart legend efforts from our players just to win one round. Two years ago we one 8 playoff games. This season only 6. Whenever we face a stiff club we've fallen over and due very much to coaching strategy and player deployment. We've wasted the peak years of our legend players. Drai turning 29 at season start.

Unlike the Oilers Vegas had solid coaching, buy in, and devised schemes specific to beating us. Our coaching staff don't even plan strategy specific to series opponents. Apparently thats too much work.

Leon is 27 now, turning 28, just to correct that.

 

[Mr Positive]

I see what you're after, but I don't think it's of course. Other teams will be utilizing their extra cap and the Oilers can certainly use all the cap they can to be a better team. If the others get more cap and you can't use yours it'll make your team weaker compared to the others. This without commenting the actual deal. I also think this is about Holland making a push for his final year, but it gets more serious and more proven if Holland makes other "one year" moves.

In our case it's more about keeping what we have than it is about loading up

The one exception would be a Ceci replacement but of that were really on the table I do think Holland would dip into other options such as paying to move Campbell

 

[McVespa99]

The question is what are people imagining the near 30yr old Connor Brown coming off longterm serious knee injury going to be. A player that was already dropping off before the injury.

Kostin is the better player now with much more in intangibles that the Oilers need. Not sure how that points even argued.

WE lose a tough as nails young gamer that can score and we get old Conner Brown. yeah I'm not dancing over this.

What are you talking about? Are you talking about the guy that had great intangibles but still only managed to get 10 minutes a game of ice time. There is obviously a reason or reasons for that. As for scoring Kostin shot 20% last year. Do you think he is going to repeat that? Come on man, I loved Kostin as a guy and player too. But at 1 mill on the 4th line. Paying him 2 mill a year would likely be a big mistake.

 

[LTIR]

What are you talking about? Are you talking about the guy that had great intangibles but still only managed to get 10 minutes a game of ice time. There is obviously a reason or reasons for that. As for scoring Kostin shot 20% last year. Do you think he is going to repeat that? Come on man, I loved Kostin as a guy and player too. But at 1 mill on the 4th line. Paying him 2 mill a year would likely be a big mistake.

Him getting 10min per night is more on the coach than the player. Woody had his favs and he stuck with them.
As for shot %, Nuge and McDavid had about the same and Drai much higher. Spinning Kostins shooting percentage as a negative is grasping for reasons.
Offense from him was the bonus..he brought a lot more to the team..
2M for him would have been fine. Brown at 4M is going to be fair game for bashing if we bashed Yama and Puljujarvi making 3M per. The dude better score 20+

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Regular season record means zilch. Nada. Only to get to the dance. The Oilers, a juggernaut team with the two best players in the world are only .500 in the playoffs with this coaching staff, thats it, thats all. We need stalwart legend efforts from our players just to win one round. Two years ago we one 8 playoff games. This season only 6. Whenever we face a stiff club we've fallen over and due very much to coaching strategy and player deployment. We've wasted the peak years of our legend players. Drai turning 29 at season start.

Unlike the Oilers Vegas had solid coaching, buy in, and devised schemes specific to beating us. Our coaching staff don't even plan strategy specific to series opponents. Apparently thats too much work.

Not sure what this has to do with my post but my point was the Oilers are a good team, no they haven’t proven it yet much in the playoffs but what do Holland do?
Not upgrade the roster? They’re a capped out team that needs to be creative to get players here under the cap
They’re a better team with a healthy Brown on it then not

Who gives a flying f*** if it hurts us in 2 seasons, we aren’t trying to win in 2024-25…we are trying to win next year
Vegas wastes assets all the time to “go for it” each and every year
But when the Oilers do it, people whine about it

 

[McDNicks17]

Him getting 10min per night is more on the coach than the player. Woody had his favs and he stuck with them.
As for shot %, Nuge and McDavid had about the same and Drai much higher. Spinning Kostins shooting percentage as a negative is grasping for reasons.
Offense from him was the bonus..he brought a lot more to the team..
2M for him would have been fine. Brown at 4M is going to be fair game for bashing if we bashed Yama and Puljujarvi making 3M per. The dude better score 20+

82% of his goals were scored during a stretch where he had a 39.1% shooting percentage.

Drai has a career 18% shooting percentage.

Scoring almost all his goals while shooting more than double Drai's shooting percentage is obviously unsustainable and therefore a huge negative.

 

[LTIR]

82% of his goals were scored during a stretch where he had a 39.1% shooting percentage.

Drai has a career 18% shooting percentage.

Scoring almost all his goals while shooting more than double Drai's shooting percentage is obviously unsustainable and therefore a huge negative.

Yeh I guess being able to finish on your chances is a negative around here. We are used to Caggiulas and Rieder. If this is negative than have a poor shooting % must be a big positive. DET bought out the wrong one. Should have kept the mighty Yama and walked away from Kostin

 

[Drivesaitl]

82% of his goals were scored during a stretch where he had a 39.1% shooting percentage.

Drai has a career 18% shooting percentage.

Scoring almost all his goals while shooting more than double Drai's shooting percentage is obviously unsustainable and therefore a huge negative.

This of course not including his playoff goals out of convenience to selective argument. Its not like Kostin cooled down to zilch like so many other players have. He scored 5 in December, 4 in January, and 3 in playoffs. He had a couple other goals at different times.

When Yams was heating up for much briefer periods not much was said about it being unsustainable, and he was still loaded up on topsix. Kostiin scored a fair amount of his EV.

In anycase Kostin can wire the puck. I like how he's being faulted for it. He's of course several times better shooting puck then some of the players we've tried to square peg in topsix, but without getting much for looks.

What are you talking about? Are you talking about the guy that had great intangibles but still only managed to get 10 minutes a game of ice time. There is obviously a reason or reasons for that. As for scoring Kostin shot 20% last year. Do you think he is going to repeat that? Come on man, I loved Kostin as a guy and player too. But at 1 mill on the 4th line. Paying him 2 mill a year would likely be a big mistake.

I was talking in the present. In last full season played Brown only scored 10goals. Kostin scored 14 AND hits like a truck, smokes people in open ice, and answers the bell for fights. All this for HALF the price. I know who I'd be taking.

 

[McDNicks17]

Yeh I guess being able to finish on your chances is a negative around here. We are used to Caggiulas and Rieder. If this is negative than have a poor shooting % must be a big positive. DET bought out the wrong one. Should have kept the mighty Yama and walked away from Kostin

Arguing that your player is special and that their unsustainable shooting percentage really is sustainable is a story as old as time.

I remember when Eberle was going to score 40 goals.

 

[McDNicks17]

This of course not including his playoff goals out of convenience to selective argument. Its not like Kostin cooled down to zilch like so many other players have. He scored 5 in December, 4 in January, and 3 in playoffs. He had a couple other goals at different times.

When Yams was heating up for much briefer periods not much was said about it being unsustainable, and he was still loaded up on topsix. Kostiin scored a fair amount of his EV.

In anycase Kostin can wire the puck. I like how he's being faulted for it. He's of course several times better shooting puck then some of the players we've tried to square peg in topsix, but without getting much for looks.

Adding his playoff goals just adds another tiny stretch where he shot 42.9%.

Unless he's three times the shooter Drai is, I'm going to say that's pretty unsustainable too.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Yeh I guess being able to finish on your chances is a negative around here. We are used to Caggiulas and Rieder. If this is negative than have a poor shooting % must be a big positive. DET bought out the wrong one. Should have kept the mighty Yama and walked away from Kostin

Yeah. Agreed on this I get the unsustainable argument, I do, but anybody watching Kostin shoot the puck knows he wires it and places shots damn well too. He's very effective shooting through a screen and has a quick release. Indeed Drai and Kostin were the ones that got to Korpisalo. Everybody else was having trouble finishing on him.

multiple scouting reports on Kostin said he had a "very good shot" Indeed one year in juniors he was over G/G scoring 35 in 33GP. The guy rips it. But this is bad. bad thing, bad.

 

[LTIR]

Not sure what this has to do with my post but my point was the Oilers are a good team, no they haven’t proven it yet much in the playoffs but what do Holland do?
Not upgrade the roster? They’re a capped out team that needs to be creative to get players here under the cap
They’re a better team with a healthy Brown on it then not

Who gives a flying f*** if it hurts us in 2 seasons, we aren’t trying to win in 2024-25…we are trying to win next year
Vegas wastes assets all the time to “go for it” each and every year
But when the Oilers do it, people whine about it

I don't think anyone here would be complaining if Brown was signed to 775k + 1.25M bonus. It's the extra 2M of bonus that is creating a debate.

Seems like we were so focused on recruiting Brown as top 6 that we ignored Duchene ,Domi and others.

 

[duul]

I will have zero shock if Kostin is a considerably more impactful player this coming year especially taking into account linemates. He's going to go to Detroit and be one of the big guys there. No more McDrai shadow. Brimming with confidence.

 

[LTIR]

Arguing that your player is special and that their unsustainable shooting percentage really is sustainable is a story as old as time.

I remember when Eberle was going to score 40 goals.

Never said anything about sustainability. The guy could score 5 goals in 82 games and 2M could still be worth it if he brings the energy and physicality.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Adding his playoff goals just adds another tiny stretch where he shot 42.9%.

Unless he's three times the shooter Drai is, I'm going to say that's pretty unsustainable too.

Drai is somebody that worked on his shot and has developed sweet areas where he gets a lot of goals. Drai also now gets a ton of goals on the PP where Kostin doesn't see action. Deserves to be said that with better linemates and expected topsix usage Kostin is going to get more shooting chances. He's not bad at getting open in areas and he only needs half a second getting it away. Its arguable he's one of the most dangerous shooters we had EV.

How about you look at all the goals he scored instead of deducing its all some kind of fluke show for a player that when drafted was touted for a cannon of a shot. Kostins trouble is he needs to get more shots and into position more often. But several of his shots that didn't go in were also handcuffing goalies. Maybe due to the lightning release but he gives goalies fits. Increase his toi and usage at all this season and he probably scores 20 on a full season. As it was finishing 14 was a pretty nice addition.

kostin was also much higher touted year before draft but had a shoulder injury that caused him trouble and he fell down the first round draft. Skill wise he's got a package. Kid still has a lot of potential.

Leon is 27 now, turning 28, just to correct that.

My age is increasing at a greater rate seemingly so I lost track. hehe thanks.

 

[harpoon]

I will have zero shock if Kostin is a considerably more impactful player this coming year especially taking into account linemates. He's going to go to Detroit and be one of the big guys there. No more McDrai shadow. Brimming with confidence.

No more McDrai shadow? Please. He should have been damn grateful for that shadow. Guy like that, floundering around on waivers, no traction to his career at all? Comes to the Oilers, gets embraced by the whole team, including McDrai. Can’t stop talking about how much he loves the team, loves his teammates, loves the fans, how grateful he is for the opportunity, how much it means to him, blah blah. Like it was almost embarrassing the way he slobbered all over the team, and McDrai in particular. First chance he got what did he do? Started making noises about how much he could get in the KHL and most likely gave the team an impossible contract demand. He knew the story here, and still took the first chance he got to go for every dollar he could. His right of course, but for me, that just erases all the goodwill. If he really wanted to be in Edmonton he could be here. But now he gets to be a ‘big guy’ on a sad sack team. Let’s see how he likes it. And more importantly, how he performs. He might just find out how comfortable it was in the McDrai shadow.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

I don't think anyone here would be complaining if Brown was signed to 775k + 1.25M bonus. It's the extra 2M of bonus that is creating a debate.

Seems like we were so focused on recruiting Brown as top 6 that we ignored Duchene ,Domi and others.

Oilers can’t afford the Duchene and Domi cap hits this year
This isn’t hard to understand

 

[Whyme]

Other teams will be utilizing the cap increase just to keep their own players and remain around the same level. Just look at some of the teams in the Pacific we are competing with for a playoff spot.

Vegas:Marchesault/Stephenson/Martinez
Calgary: Backlund/Lindholm/Hanafin/Tanev
LA: Kopitar/Byfield/Roy/Arvidsson plus no goalie signed
Seattle: They will have some money to spend with just Beniers needing a raise. Wennberg/Eberle/Schultz ufa though.

If the Oilers can fit in Bouchard and McLeod deals that are two years, then Foegele and Brown are basically the only spots they need to fill except some bottom 6 depth like every other team. Ideally Bourgault is ready to step right into Brown’s spot on an ELC after another year of development.

Thanks for your post! Even if nobody else gets better with the increasing cap it'd make the odds of winning the SC better if the Oilers could use it to get better instead of dead cap. It's not like winning the whole thing is 100% sure or even over 50% (or anything like that). So while Brown may turn to a good or bad trade I think next year arrives soon and is still within the window, so postponing the cap hit doesn't mean much. They could've always arranged room this year too, which would mean this year's team would be a bit worse (with less available cap) but next year's a bit better (with some extra cap). It's a matter of taste.

 

[Whyme]

Oilers can’t afford the Duchene and Domi cap hits this year
This isn’t hard to understand

They could but they'd need to make room. It's all about choices and I understand if they don't want to use assets and cap to make room for them this year. Just wanted to say that it's not quite as simple as you said.

 

[Sheikyerbouti]

No more McDrai shadow? Please. He should have been damn grateful for that shadow. Guy like that, floundering around on waivers, no traction to his career at all? Comes to the Oilers, gets embraced by the whole team, including McDrai. Can’t stop talking about how much he loves the team, loves his teammates, loves the fans, how grateful he is for the opportunity, how much it means to him, blah blah. Like it was almost embarrassing the way he slobbered all over the team, and McDrai in particular. First chance he got what did he do? Started making noises about how much he could get in the KHL and most likely gave the team an impossible contract demand. He knew the story here, and still took the first chance he got to go for every dollar he could. His right of course, but for me, that just erases all the goodwill. If he really wanted to be in Edmonton he could be here. But now he gets to be a ‘big guy’ on a sad sack team. Let’s see how he likes it. And more importantly, how he performs. He might just find out how comfortable it was in the McDrai shadow.

That's how I feel about it. Good for him getting the extra million, but piss off


Aggressively chasing that extra million on your first one way contract shows even Kostin didn't believe in his shooting percentage lol

 

[North Cole]

No more McDrai shadow? Please. He should have been damn grateful for that shadow. Guy like that, floundering around on waivers, no traction to his career at all? Comes to the Oilers, gets embraced by the whole team, including McDrai. Can’t stop talking about how much he loves the team, loves his teammates, loves the fans, how grateful he is for the opportunity, how much it means to him, blah blah. Like it was almost embarrassing the way he slobbered all over the team, and McDrai in particular. First chance he got what did he do? Started making noises about how much he could get in the KHL and most likely gave the team an impossible contract demand. He knew the story here, and still took the first chance he got to go for every dollar he could. His right of course, but for me, that just erases all the goodwill. If he really wanted to be in Edmonton he could be here. But now he gets to be a ‘big guy’ on a sad sack team. Let’s see how he likes it. And more importantly, how he performs. He might just find out how comfortable it was in the McDrai shadow.

Meh, it's just business. Barrie had lots of goodwill and was a locker room guy. Fans are much happier with Ekholm. This knife cuts both directions.

Kostin is more likely fighting for scraps his whole career, than not. 4M is a massive boon for a player like him. I doubt hes going to be able Jack Johnson himself into depth contracts to the tune of $15M over his career. Those players should always take as much as they can.

 

[MessierII]

You have to take risks as a contender in a cap world, particularly a flat one. It's not like they could have afforded to pay him the salary that they would get LTIR relief on anyhow so it's a bit of a moot point. Any significant in season add is still going to be somewhat "dollar in dollar out", just not as bad as it was with all of the LTIR like beforehand

The alternative was signing a guy at league minimum and hoping he breaks out. They couldn't even afford to keep Yamamoto or Kostin with the cap as is, unless the plan was to trade one of Ceci or Kulak and bring in a D downgrade (lower cap hit), or trade Bouchard or McLeod instead of earmarking their raises (and creating new holes with trading them).

It’s just frustrating because last year he signed with the caps for 1 year at 3 and a bit. He was out all year and somehow his total AAV this year is higher and he’s all but guaranteed to earn in. It’s just talking cap on for next year.

 

[5 14 6 1]

It’s just frustrating because last year he signed with the caps for 1 year at 3 and a bit. He was out all year and somehow his total AAV this year is higher and he’s all but guaranteed to earn in. It’s just talking cap on for next year.

The caps traded a 2nd round pick to get Brown last year.