Quoting: CD282
But why is it a worry? It's 2 years away and nobody knows how he'll perform in the intervening time, nor what the salary landscape will look like either. I don't get it.
There's a pattern here, Oilers fans running skilled young defensemen out of town before they've had a chance to show us what they are (and aren't), and I don't like it.
He's 350 games into his career. Do you subscribe to the Bob Stauffer approach of evaluating at 300GP, then changing your mind to 400GP, before ultimately settling on 500GP? What the hell are you waiting to see from him? He's a quality #4, but I barely believe he's worth what he's making now. Any raise is going to be unacceptable unless he bucks the trend and turns into something more in his D+7 or D+8 seasons.
We worry because the window that exists to contend with both McDavid and Draisaitl is 5 years long, 4 if they cancel the upcoming season. This window coincides with a one-to-three year period before Broberg and Bouchard are established top-4 men themselves.
If the Oilers are genuinely interested in winning a cup during that window, the defense needs to be better: there's only so much personal growth that we're going to see from this group. Beyond that, it's going to be an external upgrade, which requires available capital. The team can't be pissing away dollars liberally if the boundaries of contention are so minimal.
The short-range "don't worry about it" school of thought is partially responsible for why the Oilers don't have a quality prospect pool and why the Oilers, despite half a decade of McDavid, are still not an annual contender.
Criticizing other users for legitimate anxieties about this club repeating the same damn mistakes is unfair.