With the signing of Leon Draisaitl, the Edmonton Oilers have taken the first step of the organization’s reported “16-14-10” plan.
Seravalli clearly said this was his projection, but he’s a top NHL insider and doesn’t make things up. He hears things on good authority from credible sources and reports them without attribution. I take this highly specific 16-14-10 nugget as an example of that process. We’ll soon enough see if the other two contracts align as well. I now expect that to be the case, unless McDavid decides to take a major hit for the team’s sake and match Draisaitl’s contract.
Will 16-14-10 lead to Stanley Cup glory?
If McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard make $40 million between them, with another $9.25 million per going to Darnell Nurse each year long-term, what will that do to Edmonton’s Stanley Cup aspirations?
Obviously having hockey’s best player in McDavid and another two aces in Draisaitl and Bouchard is an outstanding base for an NHL hockey team. Just as obviously, the Oilers need Darnell Nurse to play solid shut-down hockey and recover his game from the pit it fell into during the second half of the 2023-24 season.
Every Edmonton d-man picked up his game under new coach Paul Coffey, save for Nurse. It’s up to the two of them to figure out how to get Nurse playing his “A” game once more. If that happens — and there is no reason it should not happen — Edmonton’s Stanley Cup hopes will improve significantly.
Nonetheless, $49.25 million per year tied up in four players, as Edmonton’s 16-14-10 plan will put in place by 2026-27 season, leaves less money than any other NHL team to fill out the Edmonton roster.
This year Edmonton has a great chance to win the Cup because the four top-paid players, McDavid, Draisaitl, Nurse and Mattias Ekholm, will make just $36.25 million between them, the four of them taking just 41.2 per cent of the NHL’s $88 million salary cap. That 41.2 per cent is right in line with the amount paid by NHL Stanley Cup-winning teams in the salary cap era, 2005-2024. The average of those teams is 40.4 per cent of the cap going to the top four highest-paid players.
Only two teams, the 2006-07 Anaheim Ducks and the 2007-08 Detroit Red Wings, have paid their top four players more than 47 per cent of the cap and still won the Stanley Cup. Last year Florida paid its top four players 44.3 per cent of the cap. The Oilers top four were at 43.4 per cent of the cap last year.
Under the 16-14-10 plan, Edmonton’s top four would shoot up to 49.2 per cent of a projected $93 million cap in 2025-26, then 50.3 per cent of a $98 million cap in 2026-27. That will greatly limit GM Stan Bowman’s options. He’s going to have to convince numerous veteran players to come here on one or two-year discount contracts, the bonus being they get to play with Edmonton’s top four and have a good shot at winning the Stanley Cup.
The good news is that this strategy worked to keep Adam Henrique, Mattias Janmark and Connor Brown as Oilers this year, and also to bring in new top wingers Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson.
The bad news is that some players refused this approach, namely Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, who left for richer contracts in St. Louis.
Bowman, hockey boss Jeff Jackson and the Oilers pro scouts are going to have to work overtime to identify and sign veteran players who have earned many millions already and are now keen to try their hand at winning the Cup on a reduced salary. Those players exist, and persuading them of Edmonton’s charms will be a key to the team’s ongoing success.
But the single biggest key will be to enact the final two parts of 16-14-10 plan and sign up McDavid and Bouchard long-term.
Stanley Cup teams are built on the shoulders of the game’s best players. Having three of them in McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard locked up long-term is the most important job Bowman has but doing so will kick off endless work filling out the roster around on bargain deals.
