Edmonton Oilers Re-Sign Ryan McLeod
By Phil Gretzky
It was announced earlier today that the Oilers have re-signed Ryan Mcleod, avoiding a potentially bitter arbitration hearing that was scheduled to take place two days from the time of this writing.
The deal is for $4.2 million over two years ($2.1 million AAV). Let’s call this one par for the course.
Rumour has it that Mcleod was due anywhere from $2.25-2.5 million in arbitration, so this is a good compromise.
Ideally, you’d want your bottom six forwards making less than $2,000,000 apiece, but that’s not always possible. $2.1 million is a nice middle-of-the-road type of contract.
Perhaps in his next contract, the Oilers can see if they can sign Mcleod for, say, $1.5 million a year for three seasons. That’s a slight raise from what he got in this deal but spreads the money out more and decreases his cap hit.
If he didn’t like that maybe you could go $5.25 million over three seasons, which would bring him to an AAV of $1.75 million a season. Mcleod is a little young and inexperienced for this type of contract right now, but with two more seasons under his belt, it would certainly make sense. So far Mcleod has 138 NHL games under his belt, and although he’s certainly been solid during that time, you typically don’t know what kind of player you have for sure until he hits his prime producing years which start at 25 (Mcleod is 23 right now) and he has played 200 NHL games.
This contract brings Mcleod up to a maximum of an additional 164 games, which would bring his total up to 302. Now that being said, there are all kinds of things that can happen between now and then – injury, trade, healthy scratches, waiving for the purposes of going down the minors, so it’s entirely possible he doesn’t play a full 82 game season in either of the next two seasons – but hey, it’s not like the margins for games played are razor thin, so there’s lots of leeway for Mcleod to hit the 200 game mark – in fact, he only needs 62 games to get there, which could be as soon as next season.
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Mcleod is arguably the Oilers fourth best center on the roster after the McDrai duo and Nuge. There’s a big dropoff after Mcdavid and Draisaitl, but that’s more a commentary on how good the McDrai duo are rather than an indictment of everyone else on the roster.
In case you haven’t been watching the proverbial radar, here’s the story on Mcleod. He was originally a second-round pick of the Oilers in 2018, and once his junior career wrapped up in the 2018-19 season, he joined the Condors for five playoff games that same season, during which he posted three assists in those five games, which IMO is impressive for a raw rookie playing his first games of pro hockey. He then joined Bakersfield full-time in 2019-20, putting up 5-18-23 in 56 games with a 0 in +/- and 22 PIMs. Of course, the AHL shut down early just like the NHL that year due to the pandemic, otherwise, he likely would’ve played close to a full 72-game AHL season.
After a few games in the Swiss league during the pandemic, Mcleod rejoined Bakersfield and put himself into the conversation for a roster spot with the Oilers by putting up 14-14-28 in 28 games with a fantastic +23 and 10 PIMs. He got a callup later on in the season and produced one assist in 10 games and a -2, followed by four playoff games in which he produced no offence. The next season, though, he really broke open. After a short seven-game stint on the farm, he was called up once more and this time made the Oilers for good, going 9-12-21 with a -2 in 71 games, followed by 3-1-4 in 16 playoff games. He built on that last season, going 11-12-23 in 57 games with a +4. If it weren’t for the injuries he suffered, he probably would’ve put up more points. He followed that up with five assists in 12 playoff games.
Mcleod will look to be manning the third line C spot. I can’t wait to see how Mcleod solidifies his game going forward, and fun fact when we play New Jersey whether it’s here or there, it’ll provide Mcleod with extra motivation as his brother Mike plays for the Devils.
One down, one to go
This leaves the Oilers with $3,509,208 in cap space left to sign Evan Bouchard. We’ll see how that goes – Holland may have to do something he doesn’t want to, which is to trade for an LTIR contract, even if it’s just for one season, to cover the cap, otherwise, he’ll have to subtract a roster player.
Brett Kulak, I’m looking in your direction…..