The Edmonton Oilers are in a spot where every dollar matters. With their Stanley Cup window open, the front office has to keep finding contracts that bring real value, and general manager Stan Bowman has already spent the offseason reshaping the books.
He moved Darnell Nurse and his entire $9.25 million cap hit for the next four seasons, added two young pieces, and gave the team some breathing room. The next step is making sure that money goes to the right places.
That’s why the Oilers’ best deals matter so much heading into 2026-27. The club still has a few contracts that look flat-out strong, and at the top of the list sits Connor McDavid.
His two-year extension at a $12.5 million cap hit stunned the hockey world, not because he got paid, but because he didn’t get the massive raise many expected. He took the same number he had on his previous eight-year deal, even though he was coming off a season with 48 goals and 138 points in 82 games and his sixth Art Ross Trophy.
McDavid remains the best player in the league, yet he’s only the seventh highest-paid player, behind Leo Carlsson, Kirill Kaprizov, Leon Draisaitl, Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, and Nathan MacKinnon. For Edmonton, that’s a huge win.
Vasily Podkolzin belongs near the top of the conversation too. His new three-year extension carries a $2.95 million cap hit, and it kicks in this season after he played on a $1 million deal last year.
The 25-year-old has grown into a top-six role and found immediate chemistry with Draisaitl, who has been vocal about what he brings. Draisaitl said, “Podzy does a lot of things that a lot of people that don’t really understand hockey, they don’t see it.
He does a lot of that work for me, and it lets me have a lot of time with the puck and sets me up in great situations where I lack that in my game,” Draisaitl stated last September. Podkolzin backed up that trust with a career-high 19 goals last season after scoring eight the year before, and most of his damage came at 5-on-5.
He’s physical, reliable, and keeps pushing his game forward. If he turns into a steady 20-goal scorer, this contract will look even better.
The other bargain on the board is Frederik Andersen, who signed a one-year deal worth $1 million, plus $1.8 million in performance bonuses. Those bonuses include $600,000 for 10 games played, $400,000 for 20 games played, and $200,000 for each playoff series won in which he plays at least 50 percent of the games.
If he reaches all of them, Edmonton will have had the kind of season that makes the structure worthwhile. Andersen’s regular season with the Carolina Hurricanes was down, but he was excellent in the playoffs, posting a 1.89 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage in 16 games.
Injuries and a rough Stanley Cup Final were part of the picture, but the Oilers are betting on upside here. Compared with Sergei Bobrovsky’s three-year deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs at a $7 million cap hit, Andersen comes much cheaper, and the one-year term keeps the risk low.
Zach Hyman also deserves mention. His seven-year deal at a $5.5 million cap hit, signed in 2021, still has two seasons left and remains one of the best free-agent contracts in franchise history.
The 34-year-old scored 31 goals last season and has 175 goals in 366 games with Edmonton. He has never finished a season with the Oilers below 27 goals, which is exactly the kind of steady production that makes a contract age well.
For Edmonton, these are the kinds of deals that keep the roster balanced. McDavid’s discount, Podkolzin’s growth, Andersen’s low-cost gamble, and Hyman’s steady scoring all give the Oilers real value as they try to stay in the hunt.
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The timing adds another layer to the fit, because Kapanen is expected to reunite with Babcock again in the 2026-27 season, a wrinkle that makes this signing feel less like a short-term stopgap and more like part of a broader thread. Edmonton has also been adding other former Toronto players, so Kapanen is stepping into a group where the references, expectations and coaching language should all feel familiar pretty quickly. [Read more 🡒]