EDMONTON — To be a fan is to worry. Worry when your team signs players, fret when it doesn’t, and definitely start sweating when the season is six weeks away and the best player on the planet is still “negotiating” a contract around which your team’s entire world revolves.
An Edmonton Oilers fan’s level of concern over Connor McDavid’s contract status toggles these days between outward confidence and quiet uneasiness.
Here in a city where Lucy has pulled the football away for two straight springs, the realization that the job is not done until it is completed has been crystalized. As such, “He’ll be signed by the opening night, on Oct. 8 — book it!” can never be too far from, “But what if he’s not … ?”
Still, as the discourse from the Toronto-based insiders shifts from, “It’ll happen by opening night,” to “The season may start without a new deal,” people aren’t walking around Edmonton reminding each other that Wayne Gretzky was traded (sold) 37 years ago. That anything can happen.
Today, the Oilers are one of the highest-revenue teams in the sport. The owner isn’t cash-strapped in 2025 the way Peter Pocklington was back in Gretzky’s time, and National Hockey League players aren’t in the midst of the economic renaissance that began in the late ‘80s.
This Oilers team is coming off two fruitless trips to the Stanley Cup Final, and both McDavid and his agent have made it clear that winning a Stanley Cup in Edmonton remains priority No. 1.
The team will not balk at any McDavid demand, from money to term, and there simply is no owner in today’s NHL who will make life better for McDavid than Daryl Katz — an Edmonton native who knows the intangibles count more in a city like this one than they may somewhere else.
It’s easy to convince oneself that all the alternatives are somehow lesser than what Edmonton can give McDavid today — or that any contender would be gutted by the trade and salary upheaval. But still, the trolls are out.
What? Kelly McDavid never took a picture of her son wearing Maple Leafs jammies?
No problem. The internet will fix that for her.
A Calgary radio voice took a McDavid quote — “I have every intention to win in Edmonton. It’s my only focus, maybe next to winning a gold medal with Canada,” — and spun in into a promise that McDavid would join some other team, then return to hand the Oilers another Cup Final loss, preferably on home ice.
Yes, the crazies will always crazy. But there are real reasons to be concerned as well, if you are a Cup-less McDavid — aged 28 — who is about to commit another four or more seasons to a project that has been close-but-no-cigar.
McDavid’s two most prominent wingers are aging: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is 32, Zach Hyman is 33. The third-line centre, Adam Henrique, will be 36 by season’s end.
The team’s best defender, 35-year-old Mattias Ekholm, is on the back nine. Darnell Nurse eats up more AAV than anyone would prefer. GM Stan Bowman did not improve the goaltending, and after years of contending, the pipeline is among the NHL’s driest.
Yes, 21-year-old wingers Isaac Howard and Matt Savoie join the team, but who knows how good they’ll be? There are, undoubtedly, teams with better constructs beyond the 2025-26 season, the final year in the eight-year contract McDavid signed coming out of his entry-level deal.
This is what the McDavid camp worries about:
Sure, the Oilers are a top contender for the Stanley Cup this season. But what about the next three, four, six or eight that he would be signing up for?
Is it fair to ask Bowman the impossible question: What his roster will look like one, three or four years from now? Or is it enough to trust his resume of retooling Cup winners in Chicago, and know that he will have every economic advantage at his disposal?
Folks here will remind of the bond between McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, whose eight-year deal begins this season. And of the successful business wife Lauren has built here, and the new Bar Trove she recently opened in the heart of the city.
Personally, I do not see McDavid abandoning this project today, or after this season. Maybe someday? Sure.
Whenever the day arrives, McDavid agent Judd Moldaver will deliver to Bowman and Oilers president Jeff Jackson the term and dollar value of the contract. The Oilers brass may suggest a tweak — perhaps more term, if possible — but the business day will not close without team assent.
McDavid calls the shots on this contract in its entirety.
He’ll sign it when he’s ready, and to our eye, it will happen.
In September? Likely. Or maybe October.
It’s hard not to, we know.
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