August 2, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers signed Ryan McLeod to a two-year, $4.2 million contract on Tuesday evening. It’s a nice number for McLeod that is fully deserved. His 82-game pace of 33 points is exactly what the Oilers need out of a third line centre, and he has the potential for more. Now that we know the value of McLeod’s contract, we can begin speculating on the value of Evan Bouchard’s contract.

If you missed my piece on McLeod’s Arbitration Case, I used Cap Friendly’s contract comparables tool to guess McLeod’s contract value based on previous contracts that had been signed by players with similar career numbers to McLeod at the time of signing. My guess was $200,000 below the actual contract value. I’ll do the same analysis for Bouchard here:

Player	Points	Games Played	Points per Game	Cap %	Signing Age
K’Andre Miller	75	214	0.35	4.64	23
Bowen Byram	43	91	0.47	4.61	22
John Michael Liles	83	161	0.52	3.01	25
Matt Niskanen	76	232	0.33	2.53	23
Erik Brannstrom	49	190	0.26	2.4	23
Lukas Krajicek	39	168	0.23	2.19	24
Steve Eminger	69	283	0.24	1.98	25
Brent Burns	22	108	0.2	1.88	21
Ryan Murphy	35	124	0.28	1.08	23
Ty Smith	47	123	0.38	0.93	23
AVERAGE	53.8	169.4	0.32	2.525	23.2
Evan Bouchard	89	184	0.48	TBD	23

There weren’t many great comparables for Bouchard, which is a sign that Bouchard’s performance has been fantastic in the early part of his career. I had to add the recent contracts of K’Andre Miller and Bowen Byram, which are recent comparables for Bouchard that weren’t included in the results of my search on Cap Friendly.

As the tenth overall pick in 2018, Bouchard is the second highest draft pick in this group behind Byram (fourth overall in 2019). John Michael Liles is the only other player on this list to be the undisputed number one powerplay defenceman on their team at the time of signing. None of the players on this list had a playoff run like Bouchard’s seventeen points in twelve games from this past spring prior to signing the contracts in question.

The averages mean nothing in this case because Bouchard has crushed them all. Miller and Byram lead the group at 4.64% and 4.61% of the salary cap respectively. Byram’s points per game average is closest to Bouchard’s with a difference of 0.01, but Bouchard has maintained that level for more than twice the amount of games played. Miller has played more games than Bouchard, but Bouchard’s production has drastically outpaced Miller’s. 

Bouchard’s fancy stats were all fantastic last season, but I’ll highlight two of the most important ones here:

GF%: 53.66%

xG%: 57.68%

Bouchard did struggle in the goal share category early in the season, but he was able to pull himself all the way up to 53.66% by the end of the season. The only value on Natural Stat Trick’s On Ice Counts page for Bouchard in 2022-23 that was below 50% at five on five was his high danger goals for percentage of 49.28%. His underlying numbers were strong even when his goal share was low.

Related: Put Some Respect on Bouchard’s Name

Make no mistake about it, Bouchard will take Miller’s spot with the highest cap percentage in this group of players. Miller’s cap hit is $3.872 million. Expect Bouchard’s value to start with a four.

McLeod’s $2.1 million cap hit leaves the Oilers in the following situation:

Kane ($5.125M) McDavid ($12.5M) Hyman ($5.5M)

Nugent-Hopkins ($5.125M) Draisaitl ($8.5M) Brown ($775k)

Foegele ($2.75M) McLeod ($2.1M) Ryan ($900k)

Holloway ($925k) Janmark ($1M) Lavoie ($874,125)

Nurse ($9.25M) Ceci ($3.25M)

Ekholm ($6M) Bouchard (RFA)

Kulak ($2.75M) Desharnais ($762,500)

Broberg ($863,333)

Skinner ($2.6M)

Campbell ($5M)

Total: $76,549,958

Buyout: Neal ($1,916,667)

Overage: $850k

Total Cap Hit: $79,316,625

Cap Space: $4,183,375

Active Roster: 20

I just speculated that Bouchard’s value will be above $4 million, which means that the Oilers will likely have to carry 21 players on their active roster.

The roster described above is the most expensive 21 player scenario based on current contracts. Therefore, $4,183,375 is the minimum amount of space that the Oilers could have available to use for Bouchard.

There are three moves that could easily be made to create a little bit more cap space. First, I’ll focus on a small change on the back end. Philip Broberg needs more playing time, and the place he’ll get the most playing time is in Bakersfield. 25 year old Markus Niemelainen doesn’t need the extra ice time in Bakersfield, and he has shown a level of proficiency in a limited role at the NHL level. Swapping Broberg out for Niemelainen would create $100,833 of cap space.

Dylan Holloway is also exempt from waivers. Holloway is in a similar position to Broberg where he needs to play, but his role on the Oilers last season was extremely limited. Swapping Holloway out for a player like Drake Caggiula making the league minimum would create $150,000 in cap space.

Raphael Lavoie accepted his qualifying offer of $874,125. Lavoie will have to pass through waivers to be sent down to Bakersfield this season, so the Oilers would risk losing him to another team by not having him on the roster. However, he needs to earn his spot out of camp. Lavoie’s roster spot could easily be filled by a veteran making league minimum, such as Lane Pederson. That swap would create $99,125 in cap space.

Having Niemelainen, Caggiula, and Pederson on the roster instead of Broberg, Holloway, and Lavoie would leave the Oilers with $4,533,333 left to sign Bouchard.

While Bouchard’s value could reach $4,533,333, it would be unwise for general manager Ken Holland to spend $4,533,333 on Bouchard because there will likely come a time when the Oilers will want to have Broberg, Holloway, and Lavoie on the roster this season. They will need to have the necessary cap space to have them on the roster. That’s why it’s likely that Bouchard’s value will fall below $4,183,375.

I will predict that Bouchard’s contract will be a one-year deal with an AAV of $4.1 million.

Many fans are worried about the price of Bouchard skyrocketing after a full year of being the quarterback of the most productive powerplay in NHL history. I’m not sure which will be more expensive: Bouchard after one season in that role, or Bouchard after two seasons in that role. One amazing season could be an outlier, but two seasons of sustained success would indicate that the success was no fluke. 

A two-year deal would provide cost certainty heading into next summer. The prospect of Bouchard and Leon Draisaitl both needing new deals in 2025 is a frightening one though. That’s the downside to a two year deal for Bouchard right now. A one-year deal for Bouchard would likely result in Bouchard signing a multi-year deal next summer. That would create cost certainty for the 2025-26 season, the first of a potential new deal for Draisaitl. I would rather have the cost certainty in 2025-26 than next season.