EDMONTON — For a decade now, we’ve chronicled all the moments that Connor McDavid has provided that none of his peers give us. Feats that nobody else can pull off, that few could even dream of.
Then his contract comes up, and somehow he gives us another.
McDavid signed a surprisingly short, two-year contract with the Edmonton Oilers on Monday for a surprisingly low $12.5 million dollars per season. It is exactly the salary he has played for over the course of the eight-year deal he signed as a 21-year-old.
No raise, no bump.
Name a player who is right in his prime, who has led his team to consecutive championship series — and all the revenue therein — who did not seek even a modest raise? Any sport, any player.
We’ll wait…
“This is unique,” said Oilers general manager Stan Bowman, who has brokered hundreds of contracts in his years as an NHL GM. “I mean, I would say there’s nothing else like this negotiation.”
The old joke, when a GM or an agent is asked how a contract negotiation is progressing, goes something like this: “We’ve got everything settled except for two things — money and term.”
This negotiation was about ensuring McDavid’s Stanley Cup chances would not erode over the course of his tenure in Edmonton. Satisfied about the possibility for short-term success over the next three seasons (2025-26 marks the final year of his existing contract) McDavid and agent Judd Moldaver delivered the terms of the deal to Bowman, who quickly reached for a pen.
“In every other negotiation, it’s focused on the money. So, this was really an unprecedented situation,” Bowman said in a Zoom call with reporters Monday. “We had a great a number of really good conversations with (McDavid), and it was never once about term or dollars. It’s extremely unusual, but the circumstances are unusual.
“Connor’s such a special player and a special leader, that I think this situation called for a different approach,” Bowman added. “It was really just the other parts … where we’re headed, the vision for the team, how we’re going to improve. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked to Judd Moldaver as much as I have in the last month or so, but it was fun.”
This season, Leon Draisaitl became the highest paid player on the Oilers roster at $14.5 million per year over eight years. On Sept 30, Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov secured the highest AAV ($17 million) in NHL history, beginning next season.
If you know McDavid even a little bit, the narrative that those numbers were shaping his contract demands seemed dubious. In the end, a player who could have asked for $20 million, certainly deserved $17.5 million, and might have settled for $16 million, took a giant, two-year haircut so that his GM could have more to spend on the rest of the roster.
“That was what Connor wanted. It was not like we made a pitch that he should sign for that amount,” Bowman said Monday. “I’ve been able to run into some of our players here today, and they were shocked as well. Like, ‘Holy cow. What a leader this guy is.’
“Getting to know Connor how I have over the last year, he is such a one-of-a-kind-guy. Such a tremendous leader, and so motivated to try to win,” he added. “We’re going to have opportunities (to sign free agents) that we otherwise wouldn’t have had, because Connor wanted the AAV that he did.”
If you’re an aging Mattias Ekholm on an expiring contract, a Jeff Skinner-type free agent who is just looking to win somewhere, or perhaps even goalie Stu Skinner (also on an expiring contract), the theme in Edmonton has been set by the captain: take a little less so we can accomplish a little more.
“When you see Connor, it’s obvious what he wants: he wants to win,” Bowman said. “His actions have shown that. I think that’s a pretty inspiring thing for a player to see. If I’m a player that’s thinking to come to Edmonton for next year, it gets me pretty excited knowing how committed the captain is.”
It’s one thing for Sidney Crosby to play out his career in Pittsburgh with three Stanley Cup rings in his safe. McDavid doesn’t have that in Edmonton, despite two attempts. He didn’t want to commit past the next three seasons, and that’s his right.
In Bowman, however, he has a GM who had two Stanley Cup champions in Chicago that were stripped down by salary demands. His roster work after 2010 led to another championship in 2013, and then again in 2015.
In Edmonton, Bowman has rejuvenated an aging roster with younger acquisitions like 21-year-olds Matt Savoie (traded for Ryan McLeod) and Ike Howard (traded for Sam O’Reilly). Vasily Podkolzin, 24, came for a fourth-round pick, while promising defenceman Alec Regula was a waiver pick-up.
“They don’t have to be all-world players this year,” Bowman said. “But you look ahead two years from now, get a couple guys in their early 20s that have two years of NHL experience, that’s when those guys tend to really come into their own. And that that’s lining up really well with this (McDavid) timeline.”
Meanwhile, Bowman’s staff is mining Europe for pros like David Tomasek and the surprisingly smooth Atro Leppanen.
Whether or not they all hit, the point is Bowman has shown he can infuse youth and talent without having high draft picks. And at the free-agent deadline, he acquired — then signed — both of Trent Frederic and Jake Walman, the latter of whom inked a seven-year, $7-million AAV deal Monday.
Walman’s is a deal no one will remember, overshadowed by a deal no one will ever forget.
