Ryan Shea’s new contract with the Edmonton Oilers is already drawing attention for all the right reasons. The five-year, $20 million deal, which carries a $4 million annual cap hit, came together on July 1, and it followed Edmonton’s move to clear space by dealing Darnell Nurse’s $9.25 million cap hit to San Jose.
What makes Shea stand out is how much production the Oilers are getting relative to the price. Ryan Long of Pro Hockey Rumors recently ranked the NHL’s best bargain deals by cost per point, and Shea landed near the top of the list, trailing only Darren Raddysh of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Jackson Lacombe of the Anaheim Ducks.
Long described Shea’s season this way:
“The quietest breakout on the list belonged to Shea, who logged 35 points and a team-best plus-30 across 80 games for Pittsburgh while emerging as a trusted penalty killer on a $900K deal. An undrafted late bloomer who spent years buried on depth charts, he had never topped a handful of points in a season before finally getting a runway with the Penguins. He parlayed that platform into the biggest security of his career: a five-year, $20MM contract ($4MM AAV) with Edmonton on July 1, signed within the hour after the Oilers dealt Darnell Nurse‘s $9.25MM cap hit to San Jose to clear the room.”
That’s the season Edmonton is betting on. Shea’s production in Pittsburgh was impossible to ignore, and the Oilers moved quickly to lock him in after his breakout year. At $4 million per season, the contract gives Edmonton a chance to buy into a player who appears to be trending up.
He won’t show up on a bargain list again based on this deal alone - 35 points would work out to about $114,000 per point on his new AAV - but that’s only part of the picture. Defensemen usually land on these value rankings early in their careers or late in them, and Shea’s appeal goes beyond scoring. Edmonton is paying for a steady two-way presence, a reliable penalty killer, and a defender who can hold his own in his own end.
For a team that just opened up major cap room, adding a player like Shea at this number looks like a clean value move on the blue line.
In Other News...
Bowman Says The Oilers Are Set But Bakersfield Looms Large
Stan Bowman has made it clear the Oilers are headed into the season with a roster he considers set, but that hardly means the picture will stay still for long. In a league where injuries and performance quickly alter plans, Edmonton is still going to lean on its system, and a few young names are already in the conversation as possible solutions if the NHL club needs help.
Bakersfield is the real backdrop to that conversation. The AHL roster is being watched closely because it may be the first place Edmonton turns for call-ups, with prospects such as Isaac Howard and William Nicholl drawing attention as immediate or near-term options, while Owen Michaels and Josh Samanski are also viewed as close to NHL readiness. For the Oilers, the season may begin with stability on paper, but the organizations depth chart could look a lot different once the first wave of decisions arrives. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Fans Have Every Reason To Worry About This Roster Plan
The Oilers are heading into another stretch of roster guessing under Mike Babcock, and the early projections already have the feel of something that could change several times before it settles. Questions around Josh Brown, Ike Howard and Kasperi Kapanen are part of the noise, but the bigger issue for Edmonton is how the pieces fit around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl at five-on-five, where the club expects to lean on its stars together.
For a team built to win now, the uncertainty is what makes this such a nerve-racking plan. A lineup that looks thin on paper is one thing, but the added concern is whether the veteran core can stay healthy enough to make any version of it work over time. If those pieces are shaky, the Oilers may be forced to improvise again before long, and that is not usually a comfortable place to be in for a roster trying to chase higher expectations. [Read more 🡒]
What The Oilers Could Look Like After This Core Peaks
Five years can feel like a long time in the NHL, but for the Oilers, it is the kind of horizon that forces a look at where the roster is headed once the current core is well into its next chapter. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard sit at the center of that conversation, with their future contract timelines and aging curves shaping almost every big-picture thought about what Edmonton will still have in place by 2031.
The interesting part is not just what the Oilers will lose, but what younger pieces might be ready to take on more of the load when the veteran group is no longer driving everything. Edmonton has been built around elite top-end talent for so long that any shift away from it will change the identity of the team as much as the roster itself, and the next few seasons will tell a lot about how smoothly that transition can happen. [Read more 🡒]