The Edmonton Oilers have come out of Labour Day Weekend with a bang, announcing a bit of news that will calm the nerves of their fanbase as they head into the 2024/25. The team has agreed to terms with Leon Draisaitl on a contract extension, locking up the German megastar for the next eight seasons beyond this one. Draisaitl was previously set to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.
The exact year-over-year terms of the deal have yet to be confirmed, but it has been reported that the deal is front-loaded in nature, likely loaded with signing bonuses, and comes with a full no-movement clause, giving Draisaitl control of his destiny should the team decide to move on down the road.
The deal carries an annual average value of $14,000,000, making him the highest-paid player by average salary in NHL history. It breaks a record set by Auston Matthews a little over a year ago when he extended with the Toronto Maple Leafs at an AAV of $13.25 million over four years.
Draisaitl signs the deal after yet another high-flying season, his fifth to eclipse the 100-point plateau in the last six years. In 81 games played, Draisaitl scored 41 goals and added 65 assists for 106 points. The 2020 Hart Trophy Winner continued his production into the playoffs, scoring 31 points in 25 games – incredibly, a down year by his postseason standards. In the two postseasons prior, Draisaitl put up a whopping 20 goals and 50 points in just 28 games, even while playing through injuries.
Over the past ten years in Edmonton, Draisaitl has scored 346 goals and 848 points in 719 regular-season games and 41 goals and 108 points in 74 playoff games, putting him among the greats in an already historic franchise.
Leon Draisaitl to score over 50.5 goals in 2024/25
YES +120
NO -150
How should Oilers fans feel about the contract? Well, there’s a couple of ways to look at it.
The first one is elation for keeping the player. The Oilers came just one win shy of the Stanley Cup this season, and if they want to be back in the mix, keeping the talent that drives them to the dance and keeps them in the conversation with regularity is vital to that. There has been no shortage of speculation, both this summer and in recent years, about what Draisaitl could do. Would he wait to test the market and go to the highest bidder? Did he have connections elsewhere and want to explore those? He seems to get along great with Connor McDavid, but is there a chance he’d like to get out of his shadow?
In signing for eight years, that all goes away. It’s a commitment to the city, to his teammates, and to the team. It establishes an anchor piece when negotiating McDavid’s own extension next year or Evan Bouchard’s down the line. Those players now know they have at least one more elite-of-elite talent with them if they want to commit as well.
At the same time, there’s some obvious sticker shock. The deal gives Draisaitl a $5.5 million raise starting next season, which outpaces the expected growth of the Salary Cap. Given that McDavid’s price will be at least as much, requiring a minimum raise of $1.5 million and likely a decent bit more, and that Bouchard will take a big jump of his own, the already salary-tight Oilers will have a lot of work to do in the years ahead to keep themselves compliant.
Plus, there’s just something to be said about a player who is in the upper echelon but not quite the best on the planet making $750,000 more than the second-highest-paid player in the league, a 6% buffer compared to his next peer. In that sense, you can argue that this deal is a little rich and that the Oilers might end up in a little bit of a bind when everything adds up.
| Player | Term Age | AAV | Ceiling | Cap% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connor McDavid (Sign Date) | 22-29 | $12,500,000 | $75,000,000 | 16.7% |
| Connor McDavid (Start Date) | 22-29 | $79,500,000 | 15.7% | |
| Nathan MacKinnon (Sign Date) | 28-35 | $12,600,000 | $82,500,000 | 15.3% |
| Nathan MacKinnon (Start Date) | 28-35 | $83,500,000 | 15.1% | |
| Auston Matthews (Sign Date) | 27-30 | $13,250,000 | $83,500,000 | 15.9% |
| Auston Matthews (Start Date) | 27-30 | $88,000,000 | 15.1% | |
| Leon Draisaitl (Sign Date) | 30-37 | $14,000,000 | $88,000,000 | 15.9% |
| Leon Draisaitl (Start Date) | 30-37 | $92,500,000 | 15.1% |
However, looking at the deal from a perspective of cap percentage, Draisaitl’s deal is largely in line with the last three contracts that became the NHL’s biggest. Assuming we get another year of “5% and a little bit of rounding” as next summer’s cap increases, he’ll join Matthews and Nathan MacKinnon before him in having their Year 1 come in at 15.1% of the Salary Cap. Given that all three players have been in the conversation as the league’s best non-McDavid player in recent years, and McDavid’s been riding out his own deal over the course of their three extensions, this lines up pretty well with what you’d expect.
One area of potential debate here is in the term, depending on how well you think Draisaitl will age. Unlike Matthews and MacKinnon, Draisaitl will be starting his new deal days before his 30th birthday, meaning the back end of it will cover his mid-late thirties.
Historically, this is a career stage where players begin to lose a step in their play, and injuries become more frequent and carry more permanent impacts on the body. With Draisaitl, you can look at this in many ways – he’s only missed nine games to injury in the last eight seasons, but he’s also known to have played through ailments in the playoffs, so that number is a bit deceiving. He’s also not the fastest of players, which is worrisome because getting slower with age will only worsen that issue. Still, he’s also shown himself to be one of the best and most creative players from a stationary position in the history of the game.
Star players tend to perform better against these age curves because they can rely on their intelligence, and the Oilers will hope that Draisaitl’s age curve looks like another slow but elite playmaker in Joe Thornton, who was still producing at an 82-point clip at 36 and a 40-point clip at 41.
The most important detail in all of this, ultimately, is that he’s sticking around. In a league where you never know when you’ll be competitive again, the first few years of this deal mean much more than the back years. Not that teams should be completely care-free about the long term, but if there’s a team that is in a position to take on some risk in return for a large upside today, it’s the Oilers, as they hope to get over the last mile with a star-studded team. This deal makes that much easier because while you can quibble a little bit about the exact dollars, it’s ultimately much harder to replace a player of Draisaitl’s talent than it will be to replace whatever might have to be moved to create space for his raise.
Leon Draisaitl Odds Watch
| Award | Draisaitl Odds (Bet365) | Favourite |
|---|---|---|
| Art Ross Trophy | +750 (4th) | Connor McDavid (-180) |
| Rocket Richard Trophy | +800 (4th) | Auston Matthews (-110) |
| Hart Memorial Trophy | +2000 (6th) | Connor McDavid (+160) |
Draisaitl can now play carefree into the 2024/25 NHL season with the contract sorted and behind him. Unsurprisingly, the top Canadian sportsbooks view him very favourably going into this year, ranking him near the top of the Art Ross Trophy (most points), Rocket Richard Trophy (most goals) and Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP) races.
Over at bet365, the projection is that Draisaitl will increase his goal total from the previous year. His line is set at 50.5 goals (over +120, under -150), along with props to score 40 (-800), 50 (-110), and 60 (+700) goals. His line for points also projects improvement, currently set at 110.5 (-110 over, -110 under).
Draisaitl’s 41 goals and 106 points were still spectacular compared to his peers, but the lowest per-game clip he’d produced at since 2019. His average ice time in 2023/24 was about 1-2 minutes lower than in those previous seasons, meaning there’s some wiggle room to get back to even greater heights if Kris Knoblauch ups his deployment.
I’m a bit bearish on that – the Oilers may want to save some of their energy for the playoffs after last year’s close call – but I still expect a big season out of him.
