Edmonton Oilers took to the ice at Amalie Arena in Tampa Friday morning, in preparation for Saturday afternoon’s contest against the Lightning that kicks off a four-game southeastern road trip.
Brown’s next game will be his tenth of the season, thus triggering the signing bonus that was a major clause in the one-year contract he signed back on Jul 01. The $4.00 million pact will pay him the NHL minimum of $775,000 for the current season, with the rest due in the form of a $3,225,000 bonus that becomes payable once he plays 10 games. Said bonus will count against next season’s salary cap, a work-around that in theory allowed the Oilers to add a top-six forward at a fourth-line price, at least in the current campaign.
Make no mistake, the Oilers needed — and still need — a top-six calibre forward, specifically at right wing. In Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan-Nugent-Hopkins and Evander Kane, the club had five forwards in the $5+ million range, but no in-house solutions to join them. In the prior 18 months Holland had been forced to trade out three different RWs — Zack Kassian, Jesse Puljujarvi, Kailer Yamamoto — whom he had previously signed to contracts of $3.0 million AAV or above, all for salary cap reasons.
What remained was a smoking crater at right wing below Hyman (himself converted back from LW), and no cap space with which to fill it. The Brown signing was an elegant solution for the current season, even as it left >80% of the price tag for next season when the cap is expected to rise significantly.
ws in the person of RW Connor Brown, who took reps on the first line at Friday morning’s skate. He then led the post-practice stretch, a near-certain sign of a player who is set to re/join the line-up.
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