Surprising that Holland paid him that when in Detroit no one would make more than Lidstrom. No way should Nurse have ever been paid more than Draisaitl.
It doesn’t work for Toronto because they are top heavy but with the wrong players. Our stars have this drive to win. They elevate in the playoffs.
It helped that Lidstrom was making an astronomical amount of money. His first contract under the salary cap was 17.3% of the cap. That's $14.5M for this season's salary cap.
He did his part by outproducing the crap out of his current deal. I expect Drai to be around $13 million.
agree and i hope that the oilers pull off the cup win and other players take less $$ just to keep running it back. i know its a pipe dream but thats the ideal outcome
i dont know 100% but i do have a feeling drai and mcdavid dont feel like winning once is sufficent, i fully expect them to plan on winning multiple
Actually I think a 4-5 year deal for Bouchard would be ideal for the team because it'll knock the AAV down somewhat in their true competitive window. That might work for Bouchard as well because he'll cash in even bigger on his 4th contract assuming he maintains this trajectory. Anything that would save the Oilers a million or two the next 4-5 years would be team beneficial. I'm secretly hoping that Drai does the same but I assume he'll go for security with him nearing the backside of his prime.
If we win the Cup i doubt I'll worry about contract numbers for the next few years. I'd even keep Campbell around as the backup next season in hopes that he looks much better under Knob and could potentially find a suitor that's desperate for goaltending.
Hughes and Makar have hardware and a track record that Bouchard just doesn't have. I know that projection is a big part of a negotiation but I don't see Bouchard being the highest paid defenseman in the league based on one really good season. He was a 40 point 18 minute a night Dman just last season, there really isn't much on his resume to warrant a $12m+ contract nevermind even $10m+ if they extended him this offseason. If they wait until next offseason after he has another season like this then, yeah, we're talking double digits easily.
He'll only be one of the highest paid defensemen in the league because he's really good and one of the first guys signing right before a massive leap in the cap. Those guys will easily pass him when they're up for their next contract in a couple years.
I see what you are saying here and perhaps the Avs are a btter example.
The cap needs to go up a lot though to sustain $40M in 3 players and still be able to fill in the rest of the roster with some SC quality.
Couldnt agree more.
Its a fair argument for sure but when we add in Nurse the team is well on its way to $50M for 4 players.
The Pickard comp dosnt apply at all. Just a completely different situation.
My point is that he doesn't have the resume to be paid as the NHL's highest paid defenseman if he signs today, there's just no way that he and his agent have a case for that. He might want to bet on himself and wait a year but as of today, that's just not realistic. Seeing numbers of 12-13m/yr. That's absurd even in a rising cap world. As I said before, projection does play a role but the reality is that he has one really good season as a top pair Dman and arguably just one and a half seasons as a legit top 4 Dman.
The caps needs to go up a lot though to sustain $40M in 3 players and still be able to fill in the rest of the roster with some SC quality.
When you at in Nurse at $9.25M that puts things to almost $50M.
A crazy number for 4 players IMO.
Couldnt agree more.
Its a fair argument for sure but when we add in Nurse the team is well on its way to $50M for 4 players.
Thats really tough to work with.
I hear what you are saying but again when you factor in the terrible Nurse ($9.25M) contract that puts 4 players to almost $50M.
It is, but it doesn't change anything. Those are the big contracts that belong to the guys carrying the largest workloads. Unlikely anyone is going to unseat Nurse from his top four role for some time.
His resume doesn't really matter. It's the cap that matters. No agent is going to let their client sign a deal that's market value for today when the cap could be 30-40% higher by the mid-point of that deal. He'd be underpaid before he even steps on the ice on that deal.
We actually agree except that Nurse is absolutely not a dman that has a $9.25M value in terms of TOI.
Agree, The Oilers mgmt would be nuts to sign him to whatever he asks for now, really he has only had a great half of the season and good since Barrie was traded. He still has his defensive warts but lets have another year. He can shoot better than most players but he can't skate like Makar, Hughes or Fox.
His resume is what needs to matter, they can't just throw him money like they did with Nurse.
If you look at his underlying metrics- he is in the top echelon of the league. He zone exits and zone denials are amongst the top defenders in the league. He has both the offence and defence of being a defender. I’ll say it again, Oilers made a massive mistake not giving him a long term deal this past summer. This is why you have an analytics dept that can help forecast these things.
No. He has now put together 3 good playoffs and 2 good seasons. His agent can bring forward his analytics on both sides of the puck. Thats why most analytics folks were saying to lock him up long term this past summer. They decided to keep Ceci and Foegele instead
