Love this deal for the Oilers, Bouchard is a stud.

He will be a very rich man at the conclusion of this deal

You think EK's deal was big man keep eating those cookies on the PP and we may see the first 12m Dman come 2025

2 more years for the quarterback of the top powerplay in the in the NHL. Great deal.

This reminds me of the Tyson Barrie contract but better... I like the Tyson Barrie contract so yes

Assistant to the Assistant PowerPlay Quarterback

Smart move signing a bridge. Bouchard had an amazing second half last season and we've all seen teams overpay free agents based on small sample size. He looks legit, but no harm in making sure after 2 more seasons. Nurse career'd it in 2021 and they paid him $30M+ too much. No need to make that mistake again. No need to take big risks right now w/ the talent they have.

Bouchard is the most overhyped player in the world right now. He's gonna be in the mix for the Norris, by reading the comments.

Well this seems like a good bridge deal, not much more to it

Sergachev was playing 22 mins per night during both cup runs, he was not a third pair D.

I'm just pointing that those kind of bridge deals are sooo team friendly. It sad to see players with no leverage get underpaid but it helps the team to build around those bargain deals to reach the cup

He has a good shot at being in the mix. He’s already a top 5-8 offensive defenseman in the league, he’s elite in transition and he’s good defensively at 5v5 and on the PK. He’ll likely average 23+ min of ice time next season.

there is like a 90% chance that all cup winners have a dman on a bridge deal, not sure why that matters

The issue with Nurse was that Edmonton bridged him twice. The first time for $3.2M x 2, and then for $5.6M x 2. He would have signed a reasonable long-term contract after the first bridge deal and nobody would be complaining.

I don't think we should be overly concerned about a bridge in this case. Dobson, Byram and Miller all just signed similar deals. If they insist on another bridge 2 years from now, that would be the Nurse mistake

You do know pp time can add to the min and he was on unit 2. And yes he was third pair there

Hedman-Rutta
McDonagh-Cernak
Sergechev-Shattinkirk

Or

Hedman-Rutta
McDonagh-Cernak
Sergechev-Savard

The thing with TBL they were deep and could distribute time more evenly. Plus having pp time adds to the mins

It matters because there is a salary cap. If you accept that players on bridge deals are often underpaid, or at least paid less than they would be on a long-term contract, this is a big advantage for a team in win-now mode. Those players will eventually have to be paid what they're worth, but until then, the team can use the cap space they saved by underpaying these guys to make the team even stronger.

sorry, i 100% agree with you. i meant to say that pointing out sergachev was a bit weird, since most team have dman on bridge deal anyway. (like you just said)

top 5-8 right now? That's beyond bold.

Makar, Miro, Josi, Fox, Dahlin, McAvoy, Peitrangelo, Lindholm, Morrissey, and Toews are all head and shoulders above Bouchard right now, and I can probably go another 5. He certainly has the potential to crack the top 10, but he's not there yet. 2 months of elite-level fantasy numbers doesn't equate to top 10 overall Defense.

Interesting deal. Fair to bridge and he seems like he's essentially proven he's a high end offensive D-Man. But he still hasn't proven he's a minute eater or good two way dman. If he proves capable of 21ish (or more) minute a night, and solid (forget if good) two way play, Edmonton is going to majorly regret not signing him for term

Lindholm, miro , mcavoy, and pietrangelo are not better than Bouchard offensively. Idk what you’re basing this on.

Well re-visit at the end of next season when Bouchard is putting up 65-75 pts while driving offense at an elite rate.

Wow, good signing by the SJS, so glad Edm traded him for EK65.

I didn't see "offensive" in your original post, but I could easily substitute 10 other D's. And Miro is miles above Bouchard offensively. That's based on results. Yes, Bouchard had a great couple months, but he was invisible for the first 2/3 of the season where he put up only 18 points in his first 53 GP. And anything less than 65 points with the league's #1 offense would be a bust. BTW, Bouchard ranked 44th in points per game last season for players with 60+ GP.

Miro doesn’t generate more offense than Bouchard, miro put up more points because he got more ice time.

Bouchard first few months were arguably better than his last 2-3 months - the only difference is he saw a huge bump in ice time the 2nd half and got put on PP1. Bouchard has been an elite generator of offense for the last 2 seasons, he was always bound to break out in terms of points with more ice time.

Yeah and if you go by points per 60 he’s in the top 20.

Offense just isn’t about production. There’s many other factors.

While I dont think it will be Nurse bad instead of potentially an 8m x 8 year deal we may see the first 12m Dman all off PP 1 cookie eating

Cause through being with McDavid and Draisaitl points will probs avg 60 or more

And with cap going up the amount of double digit guys gonna increase

Kind of surprised nobody OS. This was a prime candidate for someone like ANA or SJS to do it. As a 5m OS would have made EDM have to pay to move other guys

Almost nobody ever offer sheets because there is essentially a gentleman's agreement not do it. It's treated like an a**hole move when a gm does it, which is silly as the NHLPA has specifically negotiated it as a way for their members to have some leverage as RFAs. It's honestly nearly collusion.

And while it protects organizations players (the near refusal to use them), so fans should appreciate that, it also decreases player movement in general which we like.

But look at what happened between Montreal and Carolina with offersheets. Or further back with Burke threatening to fight Edmonton's gm because of the Penner offersheet. It's all bs

Yea I know but still this was the one time I was kind of like huh as everyone wanted EK but a future EK was available for a potential OS lul. Would have been funny

In truth maybe its time to rethink Offersheets for the NHL before they officially go extinct.

I can’t say that I think the offer sheet rule is working well, but I believe it does help to ensure that teams give the player a fair contract and don’t drag out the negotiations unreasonably long. I’m sure some of the GMs are friends and don’t want to p*ss each other off, but I think the main reason it isn’t done more often is that it’s usually futile. The team who owns the player’s rights is almost always going to match it and keep the player. Sure, it might force them into a contract they didn’t really want, but no GM is going to do something just to hurt another team if it doesn’t help his own team. (Even though Carolina played up the Kotkaniemi offer sheet like it was payback for Aho’s, I believe the real reason they did it was because they really liked the player and Montreal wouldn’t trade him.)

Still, the threat of it is always there, so it keeps teams honest. I think it drives some of the trades we see for RFA signing rights too, because teams would rather work out the compensation themselves than have it dictated by the offer sheet rules, though in some cases I think they use the offer sheet compensation as a starting point for the trade negotiations. That’s why we see a lot of unsigned RFAs get traded for a 2nd or 3rd round pick when it seems like they should have been worth more.

There are some things I think they could do to improve the offer sheet rule. I’d like to see them allow teams to use other teams’ draft picks as compensation. Currently they can only use their own, which benefits the better teams, especially where the compensation involves a 1st-round draft pick. I’d also like to see them make more RFAs eligible for offer sheets. Why shouldn’t arbitration cases be allowed to sign an offer sheet before their hearing if they can sign a contract with the team that owns their rights during that time?