Leon Draisaitl , the salary cap and paying your superstars

The Edmonton Oilers signed superstar forward Leon Draisaitl to a new contract with the highest salary cap number in the salary cap era. Let's talk about it.

If there is one consistent core belief I have with the NHL in the salary cap era it is that teams should never, ever be afraid to pay superstar players. Especially superstar players that are still very much in the prime of their careers with several elite years still sitting in front of them. They are an essential part of a Stanley Cup roster, and just about every team that seriously competes for a championship — and ultimately wins a championship — has at least one highly paid, elite player somewhere on the roster.

In most cases they have more than one.

The only potential exception to that in the salary cap era might be the 2019 St. Louis Blues, and even that is debatable depending on how highly you regarded peak-level Vladimir Tarasenko, Ryan O’Reilly and Alex Pietrangelo on that roster (I regarded them highly). But even if you want to count them as an exception to the rule, they are exactly that — an exception. You can not rely on being an exception when it comes to this sort of thing. You need the high-level superstars to be the foundation of your roster because those are the players that can take over games, take over a series and ultimately change the ceiling of your team.

Those players also cost a lot of money and will quickly eat into a team’s salary cap allotment.

This is all relevant today because the big news to start the week in the NHL is Tuesday’s announcement from the Edmonton Oilers that they have re-signed superstar forward Leon Draisaitl to an eight-year, $112 million contract extension that begins with the 2025-26 NHL season. That contract comes with a $14 million salary cap figure that is, as of now, the largest salary cap hit in the history of the NHL salary cap, exceeding the $13.25 million mark that currently belongs to Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews.

From an Oilers perspective, it is completely logical and understandable.

It is also completely necessary.

Draisaitl is one of the five most impactful forwards in the NHL, a yearly contender for the NHL’s scoring title, and a bonafide MVP level player. He is a force that blends elite passing, elite finishing and elite puck-carrying into an offensive monster that is rivaled by probably only two or three other players in the league. There might be a handful of better playmakers, a couple of better goal-scorers, but other than maybe Connor McDavid (his teammate) and Nathan MacKinnon there is almost nobody that is on his level in both areas.

What are they supposed to do? Let him walk after this season because he will not sign for $12 million instead of $14 million?

Trade him for a fraction of his actual on-ice value?

Hope that they can use that salary cap space to “spread the wealth” among multiple, inferior players that still probably will not match his individual production?

Of course not. Mainly because that idea never works in practice the way you might hope it works in theory.

You have to pay him. And the Oilers did. And now that sets the wheels in motion for a lot of discussion points regarding them and their future.

So let’s talk about some of them.

1. Percentage of cap matters just as much, if not more, than the actual cap number