June 27, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg

The long awaited contract extension for Trent Frederic with the Edmonton Oilers was finally announced on Friday morning. Darren Dreger reported that the deal is an eight-year deal with an average annual value of $3.85 million.

Frederic was acquired by the Oilers at the trade deadline last season after putting up fifteen points in 57 games with the Boston Bruins. He played in just seven minutes of one game down the stretch for the Oilers due to a high ankle sprain that he sustained while playing for the Bruins. Frederic added four points in 22 playoff games for the Oilers this spring. His ankle injury clearly hampered him throughout the playoffs. The 2016 first round pick has 109 points in 338 NHL games with the Bruins and the Oilers.

Related: Oilers acquire Frederic

This extension was one of the worst kept secrets in hockey for weeks. Frederic extending with the Oilers was predictable given the price Oilers GM Stan Bowman paid to get him. His physical style of play is a big reason that Bowman was willing to pay up for Frederic. He gave the Oilers some of the physical presence they lacked during the regular season. It’s clear that Frederic will fill the role of now departed Evander Kane, but with less offensive upside at a lower AAV.

I like Frederic as a player, and he seems like a positive presence in the dressing room. He made it clear that he enjoys playing in Edmonton throughout the playoffs. I’m glad that he signed an extension because it would’ve hurt to lose him after paying a second and a fourth round pick to get him.

Having said all that, I think that his acquisition cost was far too high and I think this contract is an overpayment in both AAV and term. Frederic earned a two-year contract with an AAV of $2.3 million from the Bruins after a breakout season where he got 31 points in 79 games in 2022-23. He responded with a career-high 40 points in 82 games in 2023-24. He scored seventeen and eighteen goals in those two seasons respectively. Last season, he got fifteen points in 58 games. That’s a dropoff of 0.23 points per game, which works out to a 47% decline. Frederic’s five-on-five points per 60 rate dropped from 2.11 in 2023-24 to 1.03 last season. That’s a 51% dropoff. He didn’t show me anything this past season that suggests he is worth an eight year commitment at $3.85 million per year.

Related: Heavy Hockey Faceoff: Is Trent Frederic worth $32 million over 8 years?

Even if you wanted to argue that a 40-point player is worth at least $3.85 million per season, I still feel that Frederic doesn’t meet that criteria. He reached that level once two years ago. His 40 points in 82 games were a 24% increase over his previous career-high, and he did that once. His body of work suggests that Frederic is closer to a 25-30 point player rather than a 40-point player. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think Frederic is a good player. It just means I think he’s overpaid.

Viktor Arvidsson just got 27 points in 67 games for the Oilers in the first year of a two-year contract at a $4 million cap hit. Now, the team is looking to move on from him to create cap space. There are obviously some other factors at play with that decision. There were rumours that Arvidsson asked for a trade earlier in the season, and he was a healthy scratch multiple times in the playoffs. The bottom line is that the Oilers didn’t feel that they were getting enough out of Arvidsson at that price point. Frederic did less than Arvidsson last season, and he just got paid $3.85 million for EIGHT YEARS. The math just doesn’t add up for me.

The salary cap is going to rise substantially over the next few seasons, so the cap hit will feel smaller over time. Frederic might end up meeting the expectations associated with that AAV as those expectations change with the rising cap. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s an overpay now. The Oilers are in a championship window, and their cap situation for the 2025-26 season is tight once again. Overpaying a bottom six player with the expectations and the pressure the Oilers will face this coming season isn’t a winning game plan. I hope Frederic proves me wrong because the Oilers have invested A LOT of draft capital and actual dollars in him.