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NHL insider Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff is seeing positive signs regarding Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid’s new contracts with the Edmonton Oilers. Seravalli hints that their salary cap may be lower than expected.

Earlier this year, Servalli said he expected Draisaitl to sign for $14 million per year. But when Oilers Now host Bob Stauffer suggested the combined annual salary cap for Draisaitl and McDavid could be $30 million, Seravalli said, “I think it will be less than that. It will be close, but I think it will be on the lower end of that.”

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Servalli said the chance that McDavid and Draisaitl will sign new contracts with the Edmonton Oilers is “well over 90 percent.”

How will the negotiations turn out?

“For me, it’s as simple as the Draisaitl camp at Octagon Hockey, run by Mike Liut, where you write a number on a piece of paper and throw it at the Oilers,” Seravalli said. “That’s the beginning and the end for me. I don’t know how much you’re potentially going to negotiate. And not for nothing, when I talk to people close to the whole thing, I get the feeling that the end result, the final number, might surprise people a little bit in terms of the appropriateness. It’s still going to be expensive, but I don’t think Leon Draisaitl is sitting here saying, ‘I need every penny in Edmonton.’ I don’t think he sees it that way.”

Both McDavid and Draisailt are aware they could get more on the open market, but any additional salary cap space they absorb would limit Edmonton’s ability to sign other players critical to winning, Seravalli said.

“They both know from their experiences in Edmonton how much this means to them.”

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By increasing the salary cap, the Oilers can now sign more talent and have the best roster of the McDavid-Draisaitl era, Seravalli said.

My opinion

1. Servalli did a great job of explaining the issues and the stakes. It’s also fantastic to hear what I’ve long suspected, that McDavid and Draisaitl are aware of how what they’re getting in their contracts will affect Edmonton’s chances of winning. This is how the game is rigged in the NHL’s cap era.

If the Oilers’ two best players are only interested in maximizing their annual salary, that will severely limit Edmonton’s chances of winning

2. We’ve already seen Edmonton players take discounts this summer, but now it comes down to Draisaitl’s contract negotiations, which are currently underway between Draisaitl’s agent and Oilers GM Stan Bowman.

As for what a discount deal for Draisaitl and McDavid might look like, I’d say it’s closer to $26 million per year than $30 million per year, at least if everyone agrees that winning the Stanley Cup – while paying McDavid and Draisaitl a salary befitting their status as the Oilers’ leaders – is the top priority.

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To win the Cup in the NHL’s cap era, this is probably what Draisaitl and McDavid need in light of their new contracts.

3. In the Oilers’ salary structure, four players – McDavid, Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard – will be at the top of the salary pyramid in the coming years, each making more than $9 million per year starting in the 2025-26 season. Given Bouchard’s development as a defenseman and forward, I see no way around this.

Based on NHL history, what is the most the four highest-paid players can earn in a year without their team winning the Cup?

The most a team has ever paid to its top four players was 47.1 percent of the salary cap. The Detroit Red Wings paid 15.1 percent to Niklas Lidstrom, 13.3 percent to Pavel Datsyuk, 11.9 percent to Brian Rafalski and 7 percent to Brad Stuart in the 2007-08 season.

Only two other teams paid more than 45% in the 2005-24 cap era and won the Cup: the 2006-07 Anaheim Ducks at 47.1% and the 2015-16 Pittsburgh Penguins at 45.2%.

The Florida Panthers’ top four players were 44.3% last year. The average for the 19 teams that won the Cup in that era was 40.4% for their top four players.

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Last year, Edmonton’s top four of McDavid, Draisaitl, Nurse and Mattias Ekholm covered 43.4% of the cap, giving the Oilers plenty of room to sign more strong players.

This year, that same top 4 will be at 41.2% for the Oilers, and it’s no coincidence that the Oilers have the best chance of winning the Cup this season that they had in the McDavid and Draisaitl era.

4. What happens if McDavid and Draisaitl try to maximize their salaries with the Oilers and if Bouchard does the same? It’s too late for Nurse, since he cashed in for top dollar, but it’s not too late for the other big deals. Then McDavid would make about $16 million per year, Draisaitl $14 million and Bouchard $9.5 million. In the 2025-26 season, when Draisaitl and Bouchard’s new deals go into effect, the top four would receive 48.7% of the salary cap, more for one of the top four than any Cup winner in the cap era. In the 2006-07 season, when McDavid’s new deal also went into effect, the top four would receive 50.8% of the salary cap, putting any Stanley Cup aspirations in doubt.

5. What happens if Edmonton’s top players do what other players like Adam Henrique, Connor Brown, Mattias Janmark, Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner have already done and take discounts? Edmonton’s top four would be at 47% of the cap in 2025-26 and 46.1% in 2025-26, and that percentage would drop in the coming years, giving Edmonton a realistic shot at the Cup in every single season of Draisaitl, McDavid and Bouchard’s new contracts.

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In this scenario, Draisaitl and McDavid would each receive about $13 million per season, while Bouchard would receive $9.0 million per year.

But that’s the scenario in which you win the Stanley Cup, and that’s the scenario where the chances of success in the playoffs are highest.

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