Curious to see this team navigate the salary cap with Drai and McDavid accounting for $21M

Lol less than 15 mil in cap space next season with 13 players rostered.

Not 100% sure Chiarelli knows what he's doing here. He should know that after paying McDavid 12.5M per, Drasaitl's deal had to be more team friendly than this. He'll have the 9th biggest AAV among all skaters this season and he's had one good (albeit very good) year. The number should have been 7-7.5M. I don't think making a guy the highest paid player ever by 2M, then overpaying another by 1M is good business. Chicago hasn't made it out of the 1st round since Toews and Kane signed their big deals, and Bowman has by all accounts done a fairly masterful job of keeping them competitive even with the financial burden. Chiarelli isn't on the same level as Bowman and it will be interesting to see how he manages them going forward. They better win the cup this year, because after that they'll be in salary cap hell.

I am not worried about the cap for next year because lets face it.. Nuge is not a $6 mill a year player.. he doesnt put up the numbers so he will be trade bait at some point in time.. plus alot of the guys who has contracts expiring end of next season are not big money players... RFAs will get resigned the UFAs are gone...

I totally agree with your point of view. PC could have saved some money, if he signed Leon last season or even this season, but before signing Connor. Maybe even Connor would have been signed a little cheaper, if he saw that Leon signd for, lets say, $7.5 million.

mcdavid is going to make anybody he plays with better and until they find wingers that are willing to be reasonable with there contract demands they are going to have a hard time building a team that stays together. if ryan strome for instance place a whole year mostly on mcdavids line what is he going to ask for when his contract is up? and some team will over pay him. and the oilers will have to move him. look at Chicago they have 2 guys making 21 million and they have had a hard time since those contracts have kicked in. they don't have the money to pay for the depth and they are lucky enough to have 2 great defenseman. I honestly think the oilers would be better off trading leon for some depth. but that's my opinion. the reason pitt can be "stacked" to win multiple cups is because they didn't pay Crosby 12.5 million a year. he took a reasonable check so management could put better players around him

all good points however saying that too much money is **** blocking the future of the team is ridiculous when you look at the Crosby and Malkin whom together makes 20.4 mil... look how that team ended up.. Syd is 4 years into a 12 year contract that may average 8.75 mil but reality he is getting over 10 mil this year as his contract is front loaded.. it seems to me last year everyone was saying Pens wont win the cup as they have too much money tied up in Syd, Malkin, Kessel Letang which between 4 of them made almost 35 million..
oilers will trade nuge to free up cap room, invest in Puljujarvi and yamamoto, pakarinen as well as Shlepy and let maroon and Letestu go next year as they develop their younger stars to replace them..