Sportsnet insider Frank Seravalli opened his first column for the network with a prediction that lands like a slap shot from the blue line: Connor McDavid won’t sign an extension with the Edmonton Oilers next summer, and he’ll instead play out 2027-28 somewhere else.
That part of the take is the one plenty of people around the league are already willing to entertain. The more aggressive piece is how Seravalli sees it happening.
“Connor McDavid does not sign a contract extension in Edmonton next summer, when first eligible, and plays out 2027-28. My belief: Though undecided, if McDavid is ultimately changing teams, it won’t be via trade, as he won’t want to weaken the next team before his arrival. Think a small sign-and-trade with a piece for his rights, similar to Mitch Marner.”
That’s the scenario Seravalli laid out, and it would mirror the move the Toronto Maple Leafs and Vegas Golden Knights pulled off with Mitch Marner on July 1, 2025. Toronto sent Marner to Vegas in a sign-and-trade, received Nicolas Roy back, and Marner had already agreed to an eight-year, $96-million extension with the Maple Leafs before the deal was finalized.
McDavid, meanwhile, is in the first year of a two-year extension carrying a $12.5 million AAV. It was a discount deal, one meant to keep Edmonton in the hunt for a Stanley Cup. But the Oilers were knocked out in the first round in 2025-26 after reaching the Final in back-to-back seasons, and that has fueled the feeling that frustration could be creeping in.
The biggest obstacle in Seravalli’s theory is the no-move clause. If McDavid decides to go elsewhere, Seravalli believes he probably won’t waive it for a standard trade because that would leave his next team thinner before he even arrives.
That puts Edmonton in a tough spot: either work out a smaller sign-and-trade for his rights, or watch him leave for nothing in free agency. There’s also the possibility the Oilers move him earlier and try to extract the best return they can.
Still, the idea that McDavid would go out of his way to leave Edmonton empty-handed is a heavy lift. It would mean walking away from one of the biggest trade returns the league has ever seen, and it’s fair to wonder whether he’d really choose that path. Marner’s situation in Toronto came with clear tension between player and team, and that likely made it easier for him to avoid helping the Maple Leafs on the way out.
Seravalli isn’t the only one who thinks McDavid may not stay, but he may be the first to suggest that McDavid would actively limit Edmonton’s return just to avoid landing with a team that had to gut its roster to get him.
And yet the assumption baked into the prediction is still the biggest one of all: that McDavid is leaving.
There’s nothing public to suggest he wants out. By every indication, he wants to win in Edmonton, with the core and the city he’s spent 11 seasons building around.
He has teammates he wants to stay with and win alongside. And if this comes down to money, the Oilers can pay.
They’re one of the NHL’s most profitable franchises, and the rising salary cap should give them room to offer him $24-$25 million. Not every team can do that.
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