Équipe: 2021-22 Oilers d'Edmonton

Date de création initiale: 12 août 2021

Publié: 17 août 2021

Mode - plafond salarial: Basique

At this stage, Yamamoto is worth around 2 years x 1.75M. We all thought Draisaitl and Klefbom contracts at the time were 1M overpayments however were locked in long term. The first year felt like it was overpayment but quickly turned into value contracts. I'd say around year 3 for both, they were bonafide contracts.

Could Yamamoto be the same? Instead of offering 2 years 1.75M, what if we gave him 5 or 6 years at 2.5M? That's solid 3rd line money. And I do think on a Cup contending team, he'd be a 3rd liner.

The risk is that if we bridge him and keep feeding him top 6 minutes, he could turn out to be 2019-2020 Yamamoto who average a point a game. If we give him a long term deal, he could do that at a low cap hit for 5 years.

The incentive for him to sign this now is because 2 out of 3 years, he didn't perform to expectations. So guaranteed money now, plus maybe 750K overvalue for the first year or two.

Also want to add on the lines and PK - he could probably play both special teams given the option but we have so many forwards now that we'd probably run 3 different lines for the PK and he'd be on one of them.

PS: McLeod needs to PK and learn to hit if he's not gonna score points. He did not show me much last year outside of his noticeable speed. 3 hits in 10 games, and I think 1 point. That's not gonna cut it.