Toronto Maple Leafs Should Copy Oilers Strategy

The Toronto Maple Leafs would be wise to copy the Edmonton Oilers.

To be clear, the Edmonton Oilers are not a well run franchise. Their signings of players like Kris Russel and Milan Lucic were ridiculous and ill-conceived. The Taylor Hall trade was a full-on disaster.   They did, however, make a great move Thursday afternoon when they signed Leon Draisaitl to a max eight-year contract with a cap-hit of $8.5 million per year.  The Toronto Maple Leafs should follow suit with William Nylander.

A lot of people have criticized the deal.  Draisaitl has only had one successful NHL season, and he had it playing with the best player in the NHL, Connor McDavid.  He is also only 21 and despite a high pedigree and tons of talent, is, for the most part, an unproven talent.

The important part about this deal is that the Oilers skipped the traditional ‘bridge deal.’  For those who don’t know, a bridge deal is the contract between the player’s entry-level contract and the big contract that he eventually signs, buying out some of his UFA years.   This only applies to star players and potential star player.

Since NHL players cannot be unrestricted free-agents until after age 25, and the ELC deal usually expires at 21 or 22, players teams thought it was best to offer a second contract that was cheap in dollars and light in term. The positive benefit being that they get an extra couple of years to judge the player and decide if they are worth the long-term investment.

Bridge Deals Are Costly

Somewhere along the line, people realized two things: 1) An NHL player, on average, peaks at age 23-24, and so the high-price, long-term deal is usually rewarding them for what they’ve already done, rather than what they will do. Since the bridge deal almost always covers these years, the odds are the contract value of the eventual long-term contract will always go up.  Additionally, the last couple of years of a post-bridge long-term deal have terrible odds of returning value.  2) If the player ends up being worth the max-length investment, the bridge deal only served to make the cost of signing him more expensive.

PK Subban

Take P.K Subban.  After the last year of his ELC, even though he had already established himself as an awesome player, he was  signed to a two-year bridge deal worth $2.875 /year.   He then won the Norris Trophy and Montreal had to pay him $9 million/year.   Had they skipped the bridge deal, he’d have been locked up long-term on a much more team-friendly cap hit, and they’d have had him for his whole prime. Instead, the long-term deal he signed stretched into his age 33 season, where there is a very high chance he won’t be worth the money.

It’s very clear that the Canadiens should have bet on their own player and paid him for what he was going to do, instead of waiting and rewarding him retroactively.  It’s a risky move – you could lock up a dud who had one good season for a really long time.  The risk, however, is worth it.  The only way to win is to take smart risks, and given the confining nature of the salary cap, if they pay off and you end up with a player who makes less than he’s worth over eight year, you’ve set yourself up beautifully.

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Toronto Maple Leafs

I am fully confident that William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews are not going to be one-year wonders. I believe they will live up to the hype and be three of the best players in Toronto Maple Leafs history.  If the team agrees, they need to lock them up to long-term deals as soon as they’re allowed.

Nylander is currently eligible to be signed, and not only should the Leafs forgoe the bridge deal, they’d be smart to get him inked before he plays another game.  After winning MVP at the World’s, Nylander is on a trajectory to be one of the best players in the game.  Waiting is only going to cost money.

Next: Marner and Matthews Best Duo in NHL?

The Toronto Maple Leafs should be like the Oilers and bet on their own guy.  Worst case scenario: you slightly overpay a guy who has an alright career.  Best case: You get a bargain price and lock up an elite player for the entirety of his prime.