Connor McDavid's Decision to Take Discount on New Oilers Contract Detailed in Report

Connor McDavid signed his two-year, $25 million extension with the Edmonton Oilers after his representatives spent months calculating the maximum their client could take while setting his team up to make a run at a third straight Stanley Cup Final, The Athletic's Chris Johnston reported Monday.

The extension sets McDavid on track to earn $12.5 million annually for the next three years, including the final season of his previous contract.

McDavid could have commanded an average annual value of more than $20 million had he waited until next offseason to sign his next deal.

According to Johnston, it was McDavid's camp, not the Oilers, who proposed the below-market deal AAV on his extension in a "quick" phone call to the team on Monday.

Johnston reported that McDavid's representatives considered his de facto cap to be $15 million per year, which they calculated would allow the Oilers to still build a competitive roster around him through the 2027-28 campaign.

By taking an amount $2.5 million below that annual threshold, McDavid felt "he could put the organization in an even stronger position for success," Johnston wrote.

Oilers general manager Stan Bowman said Monday that his negotiations with McDavid's representatives this offseason had been "unique."

"It was really more of a dialogue and a conversation throughout the last few months, and really nothing to do with the contract itself," Bowman said Monday, according to the team's official transcript. "Usually, when you have a negotiation, it's more about the back and forth on the terms or the structure of the deal. But that was never talked about. It was really just the other parts about where we were heading and the vision for the team; how we were going to improve, and all those types of discussions."

When asked specifically about negotiating the $12.5 million AAV, Bowman said, "That's what Connor wanted, and it wasn't like we made a pitch that he should sign for that amount."

The NHL salary cap is projected to increase to $104 million ahead of the 2026-27 season McDavid's extension will be worth just 12 percent of the cap when it kicks in next fall, per Spotrac.

Leon Draisaitl has already signed his own $14 million AAV extension, which will be worth 13.5 percent of the 2026-27 salary limit. That will leave the Oilers will about 75 percent of the salary cap to build around two of the best forwards in the NHL over the remainder of McDavid's contract.

Edmonton will likely need to use that cap to help McDavid lift his first Stanley Cup before convincing him to sign a longer-term deal in future contract negotiations.