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Free Agent Profile: James Neal

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Things have fallen sharply for veteran forward James Neal since his storybook season with the inaugural Vegas Golden Knights. After scoring 25 goals and 44 points in 2017-18 to mark his 10th consecutive season of scoring 20 or more goals, Neal signed a now-infamous five-year, $28.75MM deal with the Calgary Flames on the second day of free agency in 2018. He only lasted one season in Calgary on that contract, however, scoring just seven goals and 19 points, sometimes serving as a healthy scratch.

But many thought redemption was in order for Neal when a swap with the Edmonton Oilers sent him to Northern Alberta in exchange for Milan Lucic. With the chance for Neal to play with one or both of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, 20 goals or more was again the expectation for the consistently gifted scorer. Neal didn’t quite hit the mark, but would’ve if the season hadn’t been cut short due to COVID-19 – his bounce-back season in Edmonton saw him score 19 goals and 31 points in 55 games, numbers reminiscent of his time in Vegas.

However, Neal’s decline accelerated this season, and his numbers once again plummeted to unacceptable depths for his $5.75MM cap hit. He’s now a free agent after being bought out by the Oilers on July 27th, a buyout that’ll see Neal cost them $1.917MM against the cap for the next four seasons. 2020-21 was Neal’s roughest season yet, actually, spending almost half of the 56-game season sitting in the press box. His shooting percentage and time on ice fell sharply as Neal’s lack of strong play-driving cost him a significant role at even strength.

Neal still carries veteran leadership and name recognition. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s played in 11 straight playoffs, totaling 58 points in 110 games over that timeframe. It remains to be seen whether teams will value that experience enough to extend Neal a contract offer.

Stats

2020-21: 29 GP, 5-5-10, -2 rating, 11 PIMS, 51 shots, 49.3% CF, 12:06 ATOI
Career: 850 GP, 294-261-555, +8 rating, 581 PIMS, 2,483 shots, 53.2% CF, 17:22 ATOI

Potential Suitors

The good news here for James Neal is that there are still plenty of teams looking to add affordable, experienced depth, especially on the wings. There are still a few options that make sense for the 33-year-old Ontario-born winger.

The Carolina Hurricanes come to mind immediately as a team that’s still looking to fill out their forward group, especially their depth in the bottom-six. Neal fits well in this role for them, especially considering the limited scoring upside of some current options in Jordan Martinook, Steven Lorentz, and Stefan Noesen. If paired with a strong play-driver and playmaker like Jordan Staal, Neal’s scoring touch could give a boost to Carolina’s third line.

If Neal wants to chase a Stanley Cup, and if the interest is mutual, the Colorado Avalanche also make a decent amount of sense. For a team that lost both Brandon Saad and Joonas Donskoi this offseason, his double-digit scoring upside is more palatable than that of someone like Darren Helm’s or Stefan Matteau’s. The New Jersey Devils also come to mind as a squad who could still use some additional veteran presence to help propel a potential playoff push this season.

Projected Contract

Neal was not included on our Top 50 UFA list, as he hadn’t been bought out at the time of publishing. But it’s still hard to imagine Neal receiving anything more than the $1MM range on a one-year contract, considering he hasn’t been inked to a deal already. Neal finds himself in a similar situation to that of Jason Spezza a few years back — a once consistent talent who’d seen his numbers drop in recent seasons. Spezza took a league-minimum $700,000 (at the time) contract to stay in the league, and it’s a strong possibility Neal will have to do the same.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Oilers Have Shown Interest In Jake DeBrusk

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  • A pair of Western Canadian teams still have varying degrees of interest in Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk, reports Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic (subscription link). The scribe notes the Oilers and Flames as teams interested, though Calgary is to a lesser degree.  DeBrusk is coming off a tough season that saw him post just 14 points in 41 games, hardly worth the $3.675MM AAV (that also carries a $4.85MM salary).  However, he scored at least 16 goals in each of his first three NHL seasons so there is a track record of some success.  Shinzawa suggests that a swap for a center would be Boston’s preference but neither of those teams have a center that could plausibly be had around that particular price tag.

Why Two Years For A Bridge May Be Better Than One For Kailer Yamamoto

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  • With Edmonton’s cap situation being fairly tight already even with LTIR-bound Oscar Klefbom taken into consideration, there’s a case to be made that a one-year contract for RFA winger Kailer Yamamoto would make the most sense. However, Bruce McCurdy of the Edmonton Journal suggests that a two-year deal would be better to serve as a hedge for Jesse Puljujarvi’s contract next summer even though the AAV on a two-year pact would undoubtedly be higher.  Yamamoto has 52 points in 102 career NHL games and since he has basically only been a regular for the last year and a half with the Oilers, his bridge deal may come in a little lower than some of the other ones that will be handed out to players coming off their entry-level deals this summer.

Lack Of Scoring Chances Allowed May Explain How Koekkoek Received Two-Year Deal

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  • David Staples of the Edmonton Journal examined the recent two-year deal that the Oilers handed to defenseman Slater Koekkoek. While his numbers were underwhelming last season – one goal in 18 games while averaging just 13:10 per contest – he was better than several Edmonton blueliners in terms of frequency of allowing scoring chances.  Koekkoek’s numbers usually wouldn’t be good enough to yield a multi-year contract so there’s a good chance that the team was intrigued by that particular stat as well.

Edmonton Oilers Sign Slater Koekkoek

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The Edmonton Oilers will be bringing back a familiar face. The team has signed Slater Koekkoek to a two-year contract that will carry an average annual value of $925K. Koekkoek was an unrestricted free agent, but spent this past season with the Oilers. PuckPedia reports that the deal is worth $750K in 2021-22 and $1.1MM in 2022-23.

Koekkoek, 27, registered a single point in 18 games for the Oilers, but still was in the lineup when the team took on the Winnipeg Jets in the first round of the playoffs (and were quickly swept). If things go according to plan he won’t be there this time around, as the Oilers have revamped their defensive group, but the team still obviously values him enough to bring him back on an inexpensive deal.

Selected 10th overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2012, Koekkoek was supposed to bring a mix of size and offensive ability. Insead, by the time he got to the NHL that offense had completely dried up, limiting him to a depth role. In 85 games for the Lightning spread over parts of five years, he registered 14 points. He actually eclipsed that mark by one in just 64 contests with the Chicago Blackhawks, but there was still never really any sign of a top-four player.

Now, even hitting the open market at a relatively young age, Koekkoek has taken the security of a two-year deal with the Oilers. He’ll slide into the depth chart somewhere around seven or eight, depending on the development of some of the younger options in Edmonton’s pipeline, but there’s little doubt Koekkoek will be playing games for them at some point this year.

Mark Spector of Sportsnet broke the deal on Twitter

Edmonton Oilers Sign Tyler Benson

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The Edmonton Oilers have signed minor league forward Tyler Benson to a one-year, two-way contract for the 2021-22 season. The deal will pay him $750K at the NHL level. Benson was a restricted free agent this offseason but did not qualify for salary arbitration.

It’s been five years now since Benson was selected 32nd overall by the Oilers, and despite very strong minor league numbers he still has just seven games played at the NHL level. This season the young forward started the season playing in Switzerland, before re-joining the Bakersfield Condors when the AHL season got underway. In 36 regular season games with the Condors, he once again put up big numbers, scoring ten goals and 36 points.

There’s never really been a question about Benson’s offensive upside at the AHL level, but he has failed to ever really grab an NHL roster spot and run with it. He’ll likely get another chance at training camp this season, battling with players like Brendan Perlini for the last few spots. This time, there’s a big difference in his favor–Benson is no longer waiver-exempt.

That means the Oilers would need to risk him to the rest of the league in order to send him to the minor leagues, and though waiver claims are relatively infrequent, a 23-year-old point-per-game AHL player would likely attract some interest. If there was ever a chance to have the best training camp of your career, it’s now for Benson.

Oilers May Invite Simon Kubicek To Training Camp

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  • The Oilers may invite undrafted defenseman Simon Kubicek to training camp, suggests Postmedia’s Kurt Leavins. The 20-year-old’s WHL rights were recently acquired by the Oil Kings who play out of the same rink as their NHL counterpart.  Kubicek spent most of the season with Ceske Budejovice of the Czech Extraliga and also suited up at the World Juniors (which also took place in Edmonton).

Edmonton Oilers Sign Stuart Skinner

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The Edmonton Oilers have signed Stuart Skinner to a new two-year, two-way contract. The deal comes with a $750K average annual value at the NHL level. Skinner was a restricted free agent but did not qualify for salary arbitration.

For a team like the Oilers, who have several aging goalies at the NHL level, a prospect like Skinner is very important. The 22-year-old netminder had a strong season for the Bakersfield Condors in 2020-21, posting a 20-9-1 record with a .914 save percentage in 31 games. That minor league success is promising and hopefully points to a future with the Oilers down the road.

While that NHL future may not be this season, having a homegrown talent take over in net at some point would be a huge win for the Edmonton front office. Since the cap era started in 2005-06, the team has constantly cycled through veteran after veteran, while failing to really develop many of their own draft picks. Devan Dubnyk was the exception to that, but he’s been gone for years now and experienced his best years elsewhere.

With a group that includes Mike Smith, Mikko Koskinen and Alex Stalock signed for this season, there may not be much room for Skinner. But two of those goaltenders are unrestricted free agents at the end of the 2021-22 season, which could potentially open a spot for a young backup. The fact that Skinner is still waiver-exempt helps this year, but that designation will end after the upcoming season. A two-year contract opens up the chance that he could be a league-minimum option for them in 2022-23.

Buyout-Proof: Darnell Nurse’s Extra Protection

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The Edmonton Oilers made a huge commitment to Darnell Nurse yesterday, signing the 26-year-old defenseman to an eight-year contract extension. The $74MM contract doesn’t even kick in until the 2022-23 season, meaning it will keep him employed until 2030. The $9.25MM cap hit is currently the fifth-highest among NHL defensemen, but the average annual value isn’t the only thing to negotiate when it comes to career-defining contracts.

The contract also includes a full no-movement clause through the 2026-27 season, and a modified no-trade clause through the final three years. Nurse will be able to submit a list of ten teams he would accept a trade to during those final few years, but that’s actually not the only protection built into the deal. For that, the full salary breakdown is needed (via CapFriendly):

  • 2022-23: $12.0MM salary
  • 2023-24: $10.4MM salary
  • 2024-25: $12.0MM salary
  • 2025-26: $10.0MM salary
  • 2026-27: $2.0MM salary + $6.0MM signing bonus
  • 2027-28: $1.2MM salary + $6.0MM signing bonus
  • 2028-29: $1.2MM salary + $6.0MM signing bonus
  • 2029-30: $1.2MM salary + $6.0MM signing bonus

The combination of a contract being front-loaded and then filled with signing bonuses creates another sort of protection for Nurse. After the halfway point, it essentially can’t be bought out. The cap savings would be negligible at that point, meaning the defenseman will almost certainly see this new deal play out regardless of how he performs down the line.

For instance, if the team tried to buy the deal out in June 2026, they would still face cap hits of $7.72MM in 2026-27 and $8.52MM in each of the next three years. As it gets closer to the end of the term, the cap savings would be even less. That means if things go sour, Edmonton would need to pull the trigger early to get any real relief, like the Minnesota Wild recently did with Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, but that would still result in some painful cap penalties without a player to show for it.

This isn’t the first time the league has seen contracts structured in a way to prevent buyouts. In the summer of 2016, just a few days after free agency opened, PHR published a piece examining how Loui Eriksson’s deal (and several others signed that day) was essentially buyout-proof. As we enter the final season of that six-year, $36MM deal, Eriksson is still technically active but was scratched for basically the entire 2020-21 campaign. He played just seven games for the Vancouver Canucks this year and has just 14 points over the past two seasons. Despite his obvious struggles, there wasn’t a way to clear his contract off the books–at least not without trading him.

Edmonton could now face that same situation if Nurse’s play declines a few years from now. It’s a gamble, an especially risky one to take a year out from Nurse reaching unrestricted free agency. In 2022-23, the Oilers’ defenseman will be earning the same amount of money as Connor McDavid, whose eight-year, $100MM contract was only slightly front-loaded. The team is making a huge investment in the short term, hoping to find some success in the postseason.

Oilers Sign Brendan Perlini

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The Oilers have added some forward depth, announcing that they have signed winger Brendan Perlini to a one-year, two-way contract.  The deal will pay the NHL minimum of $750K while the AHL salary was not released.

It has been a bit of an odd journey for the 25-year-old so far.  Drafted 12th overall by Arizona in 2014, Perlini showed some offensive upside early in his career, notching 14 goals in his rookie season and 17 in his sophomore campaign.  A sluggish start in 2018-19 resulted in a trade to Chicago where he picked up a dozen more tallies in 46 games.

He was never really able to lock down a spot though and early in 2019-20, he was flipped to Detroit where the production dried up entirely as Perlini had just one goal and three helpers in 39 games, numbers that led to a non-tender last fall.  Rather than accept a two-way deal, Perlini went overseas and signed with Ambri-Piotta in Switzerland where he had a decent campaign with nine goals and seven assists in 21 games, good enough for seventh in team scoring despite missing more than half the season.

Perlini is an interesting fit for Edmonton.  The Oilers are a team that will need to fill out their roster with some cheaper contracts while having more on hand in the minors for recalls.  There’s definitely enough a track record to suggest that Perlini could rebound offensively and be a serviceable contributor in the bottom six but with how things went in Detroit, it’s possible he rarely sees the ice for him.  Still, there is rarely a bad two-way contract and this one certainly will carry a little bit of upside for Edmonton.

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