Quoting: HockeyScotty
He's worth at least 2x that AAV on a 1 year deal so the Oilers did great in that sense.
I can't help but question why Edmonton is doing all these 1 year deals. Next years cap probably only goes up $1 million or slightly more; the big jump is 2 years away per Bill Daly.
Skinner, Bouchard, Puljujarvi, and now McLeod are all on expiring deals and the Oilers don't have much coming off the books next year.
They still need to shed salary this year but next year is going to get worse.
They're icing the best possible lineup this season and pushing next year's problem to next year.
Next year things will be different:
- $1M cap rise
- $2.25M in dead cap comes off the books
- Ryan and Janmark deals expire ($2.5M)
- players with 1 year left (Barrie, Foegele) will be easier to move
- several prospects will be ready for NHL full time
- some of those RFA's won't have arbitration rights next summer, so they'll get cheap 1 year bridges
- the LTIR contracts (Klefbom, Smith, Koekkoek) drop off, giving the flexibility and the ability to accrue cap space in season
I don't think there's any mystery to it. Just more of the same.