New Strategy Will Help Oilers With Bouchard

Contract deferrals have come to the NHL, so it's time for the Oilers to jump on that wave to get one of their best players re-signed.

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Though they didn't opt for that route when re-signing Leon Draisaitl, it would make plenty of sense to use deferrals when extending Evan Bouchard.

Considering his talent, age, and upside, Bouchard should command one of the highest AAVs among NHL defencemen. That would put him between $9.5 and $10 million. That puts him below Rasmus Dahlin ($11 million), and above slightly older extensions signed by Cale Makar ($9mil), Adam Fox ($9.5mil), and Charlie McAvoy ($9.5mil).

After giving Draisaitl $14 million per year, and staring down the barrel of an even bigger Connor McDavid contract, that's not quite what the Oilers want to hear.

This is where Seth Jarvis and the Carolina Hurricanes come to the rescue. Last weekend, Jarvis signed an eight-year, $63.2 million contract to stay in Carolina. About $15 million of that is deferred until the day after the contract expires, effectively lowering the yearly cap hit from $7.9 million to $7.42 million.

This is a common occurence in other sports, notably baseball. Shohei Ohtani's $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers is only worth about $460 million by MLB's accounting, thanks to huge deferrals.

This could solve the issue of a high asking price for Bouchard. Using PuckPedia's handy-dandy new deferral tool, we can determine what it would take to lower the AAV to a more palatable range.

Let's say the Bouchard camp wants eight years and $10 million per year. For the sake of ease (and my math-challenged brain), let's give him exactly the same deferrals as Jarvis. On a $10 million AAV, that works out to $4.25 million deferred in the first two years, and $8.52 million deferred in year seven, all of these paid in a lump sum bonus on July 1st of "year nine" of the contract.

All in all, the savings would leave Bouchard with an AAV of $9,520,653, sandwiched between Zach Werenski and Charlie McAvoy as the fifth highest-paid blueliner in the league. A little more creative accounting could drive his price down below that of Darnell Nurse, at $9.25 million.

Of course, Bouchard would need to agree to the lost earnings, as $18 million nine years from now is worth less than $18 million today. Contract deferrals have been allowed by the CBA for years, but very few players ever agree to them. Being pushy with it can have dire consequences. For another baseball example, the Washington Nationals' obsession with deferrals lost them two generational talents in a five-year span not long ago.

Despite the slight pay dip, this might be the best course of action for both team and player. Of course, the Oilers would retain an elite defenceman at a reduced cost, while Bouchard would get to keep passing the puck to Connor McDavid and compete for a Stanley Cup.

Building a team around four $9 million cap hits would still be tough sledding for Stan Bowman, but it sure beats paying three players $10 million a year.

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