Oilers: Some thoughts on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins contract extension

Pros

The cap hit goes down

Nuge’s old cap hit was $6 million, in his new contract that goes down to $5.125 million. That $875,000 might not seem like much but once the cap starts going back up again and key players like Nuge are locked up, repeat this type of contract creativity many times over and the Oilers will stay out of cap hell – at least in theory.

It crosses a key item off his offseason to-do list

This contract was key to Holland’s offseason, and now it’s done and he can prepare for other areas of the team he has to take care of – including no longer fearing the July 17 deadline in which Seattle can sign your free agents before they go to market and the risk in the game gets bigger. Nuge also would’ve been harder to replace than any other Oiler free agent – there are other players who can put up comparable numbers offensively like Sam Reinhart or Tomas Tatar but they all have warts that come with risk. In Reinhart’s case, he’s swiss cheese defensively – playing on Buffalo might have something to do with it, but there’s no guarantee that would come up to snuff enough on a better team. Tatar is older, so you can’t lock him up for as long.

Nuge was a known commodity who we know fits in on the roster and we know wants to play here. There’s therefore less risk in bringing him back than in bringing in somebody new. Not to mention he supposedly just built himself a house within the last year and his wife is from Red Deer, while he’s from Burnaby, which is not a long plane ride away from Edmonton.

As the St. Louis Blues found out when they traded for Gretzky in 1996, there’s no guarantee when you trade for a guy – even when he’s the best of all time – that he’ll fit in on your team.

This was the most important contract to get done, and now it’s done. It took Holland 18 months to get it done, and he said this was the most grueling negotiation he’d ever done in his press conference to announce the contract.

It better reflects his value going forward

In the final year of the contract – when Nuge is 36 – he’ll have a cap hit of just over $5 million but only $3.75 million in actual salary. If the Oilers were to ever trade him – probably won’t happen, but that’s a long way off so never say never – he’ll be more attractive to teams who have lots of cap space but not looking for an expensive player.

The contract is front-loaded in years 3 and 4 with a $6.25 million salary, the peak of the money he’ll make going forward as an Oiler. That’s during a time when traditionally NHL players are still contributing well to a team.

If he retires at 36, it gives him the opportunity to be an Oiler his entire career, something no other player in Oilers history has been able to say.

In years 5-7 of the contract – when he’ll be making the least amount of money, he’ll cash in with a signing bonus every July 1 of those years to help cushion the blow.

Let’s face it – we don’t know the future but there’s a good chance the contract could become bad before it’s time. At least it’s more palatable to get rid of if we want to do that. It gives the club options.T