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Buyer Beware! NHL teams & especially Oilers would likely be better off signing no big UFA contracts

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Two out of three UFA signings don’t work out for NHL teams — and it’s much less than that with the Oilers.

There’s no shortage of big name Unrestricted Free Agents who will sign big money contracts on July 1. The Oilers are said to be in the bidding for a few of them. Maybe a big name player will sign here.

That would be no surprise.

Edmonton has Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, the gorgeous new arena, the blossoming arena district, and plenty of opportunity for scoring wingers, so much so that a big part of me is hoping the Oilers are able to ink a Gustav Nyquist or a Ryan Dzingel. Surely they could become solid scoring wingers for years playing on lines with McDavid and Draisaitl.

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There’s a certain logic to this, right? It could turn out well. It really could.

Edmonton’s UFA history? Don’t ask

In both 2015 and 2016, the Oilers signed two of the biggest names on the market, Andrej Sekera, then Milan Lucic.

In the end, of course, Sekera and Lucic are part of Edmonton’s unhappy modern history of signings UFAs. In the Decade of Darkness-plus, the Oilers have signed at least 21 UFAs to fairly sizable contracts, but few of them have worked out. The Kris Russell signing in October, 2016 was a good deal for Edmonton. You might also give a pass mark to some of the other signings, such as maybe Mark Letestu and Anders Nilsson. Maybe.

Former Oilers forward Benoit Pouliot, who was hailed by some as a brilliant UFA signing
Former Oilers forward Benoit Pouliot, who was hailed by some as a brilliant UFA signing Photo by Ian Kucerak /Postmedia

But could you give a passing grade to the signings of Tobias Rieder, Kyle Brodziak, Jussi Jokinen, Lucic, Sekera, Benoit Pouliot, Mark Fayne, Nikita Nikitin, Andrew Ference, Boyd Gordon, Jason LaBarbera, Boyd Gordon, Eric Belanger, Kurtis Foster, Nikolai Khabibulin or Sheldon Souray? I think not.

That’s a lot of names. That’s a lot of money, a lot of big hopes and a lot of major fails that have hammered the Oilers.

The Oilers have been unusually bad when it comes to identifying and signing the right players in free agency, but it’s not unusual for major July free agents to be busts for their new NHL teams.

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The Oilers aren’t alone in this particular form of suffering.

Here is a list of the UFAs signed to the biggest contracts in this modern CBA era, post January 2013, the Kings of July, 37 players in total who signed for terms of at least four years and at least $3.5 million per year.

When it comes to which of them had contracts that worked out, I can identify just 12 who get a passing grade, with 23 of them getting a failing grade, and two indeterminate.

Essentially just one in three of these massive UFA contracts work out for the team. A vast majority do not.

Of course, if the Oilers do sign a player today, that player will defy the odds and have three or four peak scoring years on his new five-year deal. Of course!

It has to happen that way. Right!?

Only it’s never happened that way for a modern, big money Oilers UFA and it doesn’t tend to happen that way for most of these UFA players in the NHL, largely because most of them are signing at their peak moment of leverage but are entering their declining years as players.

So I have mixed feelings about this July 1 for the Oilers. Again, a big part of me hopes they land a strong attacker like Nyquist or Dzingel. But a big part of me thinks it might well be a better idea to trade for a player already under contract, like the Avs just did acquiring younger attacker Andre Burakovsky. Could Nicholaj Ehlers be had in such a trade? Could Tyler Johnson? Could Jason Zucker?

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So the idea would be to help some other team sign the UFA that they so dearly want by taking a roster player off of their hands.

Yes, you have to give up some draft picks to do so but I suspect the bargain will be better in the long run.

At the Cult of Hockey

McCURDY: How the Sekera buy-out changes the equation

STAPLES: Oilers to sign Mike Smith?

STAPLES: “Ken Holland made a bad decision”: Twitter reacts to Oilers buying out Andrej Sekera

LEAVINS: The real reason that Holland bought out Sekera and 8 other things

McCURDY: Digging deep into Holland’s shopping list

STAPLES: The 31 worst NHL contracts in the salary cap era

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