Salary Cap Deep Dive: Edmonton Oilers

Navigating the salary cap is one of the most important tasks for a front office.  Teams that can avoid total cap chaos by walking the tightrope of inking players to deals that match their value (or compensate for future value without breaking the bank) remain successful.  Those that don’t often see struggles and front office changes.

PHR will look at every NHL team and give a thorough look at their cap situation for the 2024-25 season.  This will focus more on players who are regulars on the roster versus those who may find themselves shuttling between the AHL and NHL.  All cap figures are courtesy of PuckPedia.  We’re currently covering the Pacific Division, next up is the Flames.

Edmonton Oilers

Current Cap Hit: $88,224,659 (above the $88MM Upper Limit)

Entry-Level Contracts

None on the active roster.

Signed Through 2024-25, Non-Entry-Level

D Evan Bouchard ($3.9MM, RFA)
F Connor Brown ($1MM, UFA)
D Travis Dermott ($775K, UFA)
D Ty Emberson ($950K, RFA)
F Corey Perry ($1.15MM, UFA)
F Derek Ryan ($900K, UFA)
F Jeff Skinner ($3MM, UFA)

Potential Bonuses
Perry: $250K

Skinner was somewhat of a surprising late entrant to the market after Buffalo elected to buy him out.  He found what should be a good landing spot for a pillow deal, as long as he can stay in the top six.  If he does, he could push past $4MM on a multi-year deal, closer to $5MM if he’s able to reach the 50-point mark.  Perry fit in well after joining the team midseason, earning this agreement to stick around.  At 39, it’s safe to say he’ll be going year-to-year from here on out.  Bonus-wise, he’ll make $150K at the 15-game mark while $50K depends on Edmonton winning at least two playoff rounds and playing at least half the playoff games.  The other $50K is if Edmonton makes it to the Stanley Cup Final while playing in half the games.

Brown’s cost this season is a bit misleading as the Oilers are also eating the $3.225MM in bonuses he earned last year.  But for what he’s making in salary this year, he provides good value as a depth player who showed in the playoffs that he can be a key piece.  Ryan has seen his role and production decline in recent years and he’ll be 38 before the end of 2024.  This is a roster spot they’ll need to keep cheap so it’s possible they ask him to stay on a small cut in pay.  If not, he could be a candidate for a PTO next summer.

Former GM Ken Holland really only had one option with Bouchard last summer, they had to do a bridge deal to fit within their cap structure at the time and no offer sheet materialized while he wasn’t arbitration-eligible.  The result is that Bouchard spent last season on a below-market deal and it’s the same thing this season.  However, the pendulum is about to swing the other way in a big way.  Bouchard had a breakout effort last season, averaging just over a point per game and did even better in the playoffs.  His qualifying offer will be $4.3MM next summer but it’s widely expected he’ll double that and then some, especially if the sides are able to work out a long-term deal.

Emberson was picked up from San Jose as part of the Cody Ceci deal, one that netted Edmonton some cap savings and an intriguing blueliner.  Now 24, he only made his NHL debut last season and he’ll need to get into 50 games this year for the Oilers to retain his RFA rights.  It’s possible arbitration eligibility makes him a non-tender option but failing that, a small raise into the $1.3MM range could be doable.  Dermott had to go the PTO route this year and if he stays in a reserve role, it’s quite likely he’ll stay at the minimum moving forward.

Signed Through 2025-26

F Viktor Arvidsson ($4MM, UFA)
D Mattias Ekholm ($6MM, UFA)*
F Adam Henrique ($3MM, UFA)
F Evander Kane ($5.125MM, UFA)
D Brett Kulak ($2.75MM, UFA)
F Connor McDavid ($12.5MM, UFA)
G Calvin Pickard ($1MM, UFA)
F Vasily Podkolzin ($1MM, UFA)
G Stuart Skinner ($2.6MM, UFA)
D Troy Stecher ($787.5K, UFA)

*-Nashville is retaining an additional $250K of Ekholm’s contract.

McDavid’s next contract is one that has been speculated about for several years now and discussion on that front will only pick up with him becoming extension-eligible this summer.  His current contract was a record-breaker at the time for the highest AAV.  His next one will set a new benchmark on that front and possibly could overtake Alex Ovechkin for the richest deal in league history ($124MM total over 13 years) despite the maximum length now only being eight seasons.  That would bring the cap hit to $15.5MM and while that’s a very high price tag, McDavid has led the NHL in scoring in five of the last eight years.  If Edmonton doesn’t give that type of money to him, someone will.

Kane has been effective when healthy since joining the Oilers, playing a legitimate top-six role.  Considering he’s a power forward (those players often cost a premium), the cap charge is reasonable, as long as he’s in the lineup.  He’s on LTIR right now, allowing Edmonton to exceed the cap for the time being.  Arvidsson was Edmonton’s biggest commitment in free agency, a move that came as a bit of a surprise as the veteran was a candidate for a one-year pillow deal to try to rebuild his value after an injury-riddled 2023-24 campaign.  Instead, the Oilers got him at a bit of a below-market rate assuming he’s able to produce at the second-line level he has before.  He hasn’t done that early on but they’re probably not worried about that at this point.

Henrique was expected to just be a rental pickup for Edmonton but they were able to get him to take less than he was being offered elsewhere to stick around.  Given his track record, it’s a good value contract as long as he can at least hold down a spot on the third line.  That said, that role will also hinder his open-market value two years from now.  Podkolzin was brought in to essentially fill Dylan Holloway’s roster spot following his offer sheet in St. Louis.  At this point of his career, he’s unlikely to live up to his draft billing (tenth overall in 2019) but if he can emerge as a regular in the bottom six, Edmonton will get good value from the contract and acquisition if nothing else.  He’ll be arbitration-eligible when this deal expires and depth pieces with that eligibility tend to be non-tender candidates.  On a cap-strapped team like the Oilers, they’ll need to keep this roster spot around this price tag whether it’s Podkolzin or someone else.

Ekholm has been a terrific addition to their back end since being acquired near the 2022 trade deadline.  He has helped stabilize things defensively while also showing more in the offensive zone than he did with Nashville.  That said, he’ll be 36 when his current deal expires; players that age don’t tend to get significant raises.  Instead, it wouldn’t be surprising if a three or four-year deal around this price point was the end result.

Kulak has seemingly been on speculative thin ice for a couple of years now with their cap crunch but he has remained each time.  As a third-pairing blueliner, this contract is a bit on the expensive side but with them being comfortable moving him into the top four when injuries arise, it has held up okay so far.  It wouldn’t be shocking to see him land another deal in this range (both term and price) in 2026.  Stecher has been a serviceable depth defender for several years now but as long as he’s still in more of a limited role, his price tag should continue to be around the league minimum.

It would be fair to say that Skinner has been hit or miss while on this contract with not a lot in between.  Nevertheless, at the price point of a decent backup, his overall success rate has been better than that despite a slow start this season so they’ve received good value so far.  If he can improve and play more consistently, it’s possible that he could double this price point but if he continues to be on the extreme ends of hot or cold, it’d be hard to see enough of a market emerge for him to get starter money.  Pickard had primarily been a third-string option until partway through last year which is why his contract was still quite low for a backup.  If he holds that down and is somewhat consistent, he could also possibly double this price point although Edmonton would be hard-pressed to pay that much for their second goalie.

Signed Through 2026-27

F Mattias Janmark ($1.45MM, UFA)

Janmark struggled considerably during the regular season and it looked as if they’d be moving on from him.  However, he wound up playing a key supporting role during their playoff run, giving him a boost in value heading to the open market which allowed him to get a small raise, some job security, and even some trade protection.  Assuming he stays in the same role as he has been lately, it’s hard to foresee him getting much more than this three years from now.

Signed Through 2027-28 Or Longer

F Leon Draisaitl ($8.5MM, in 2024-25, $14MM from 2025-26 through 2032-33)
F Zach Hyman ($5.5MM through 2027-28)
F Ryan Nugent-Hopkins ($5.125MM through 2028-29)
D Darnell Nurse ($9.25MM through 2029-30)

Draisaitl has been one of the top scorers in the league throughout this deal but has been making a lot less than McDavid and many other NHL stars.  That’s set to change when his new record-setting (for now) contract begins next season.  This one almost certainly won’t be as team-friendly but it’s a price tag they had to pay to avoid him testing the open market in the summer when he’d have had multiple suitors at or even above this price point.

Hyman has found another couple of gears offensively since joining the Oilers.  He set a new career-high in goals (36) in his first season with them, then obliterated it last year with 54.  While that’s not sustainable, legitimate top-six forwards with some grit and a good scoring touch often get more than this in free agency.  There may be some concerns in the final year or two of the deal but they’ll have received plenty of surplus value by then.  Nugent-Hopkins left money on the table to stick around relative to what a consistent top-six center would have received on the open market.  Again, the final year or two could be more of a concern given how long his career has been already (having played in the NHL at 18) but they’ve been getting a bargain on this deal so far.

When Holland signed Nurse to this contract, he felt he was getting an all-around number one defender locked up at market value.  That hasn’t quite happened.  His offensive production hasn’t gotten to that high level and with Bouchard in the fold, it’s unlikely that it will.  He also has struggled when he’s in that number one role.  He’s still an above-average blueliner and an important part of their back end but for the role he best fits, he’s overpaid by a few million per season.

Buyouts

G Jack Campbell ($1.1MM in 2024-25, $2.3MM in 2025-26, $2.6MM in 2026-27, $1.5MM from 2027-28 through 2029-30)
F James Neal ($1.917MM in 2024-25)

Retained Salary Transactions

None

Best Value: (non-entry-level) Bouchard
Worst Value: Nurse

Looking Ahead

By not matching the offer sheets to Holloway and Philip Broberg and the subsequent roster moves, GM Stan Bowman was able to get Edmonton under the cap to start the season even with Kane on LTIR.  That has since changed for the time being but that should be temporary.  They’re at least in a spot where they won’t be under the gun to clear out a contract when Kane is able to return.  Between that and being able to bank some in-season flexibility to add help at the trade deadline, that’s not a bad spot to be considering where it could have been.

But things are about to get even tighter.  The team already has more than $76MM committed to 15 players for next season and Bouchard could add another $10MM or so to that figure.  Even if they filled out the rest of the roster with minimum-salaried players, they probably wouldn’t be cap-compliant even with the anticipated increase to the Upper Limit.  Factor in another record-setting contract to McDavid the following year and it’s clear that Edmonton won’t be able to have the same type of secondary scoring depth that they have now for much longer.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.