It's been a challenging 2025-26 campaign for the Edmonton Oilers, who have marched to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals but are going to be hard-pressed to advance to the playoffs at all this April.
Connor McDavid and co. are 31-25-8 and just four points away from being out of a postseason slot entirely with just 18 games left. A hot streak would be all it takes to get this club back into contention to win the Pacific Division, but with just four wins in their last 10, things are getting precarious.
With No. 97 signed for two more seasons after this at a $12.5 million cap hit, a serious decision will need to be made about his future in the summer of 2027. And as The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun reported on Tuesday, if the Oilers aren't able to make another run at the Stanley Cup this spring, things could get very complicated.
“At a minimum, the feeling is McDavid will give the Oilers one more season next year in this contention window,” LeBrun wrote in his latest NHL trade column.
“Let me just say this: If the Oilers flame out in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring, I can’t discount how No. 97 will feel about that, about the team’s ability to win, and about his place in it. The most likely scenario is waiting until the summer of ’27 to revisit his future. But I can’t dismiss what the disappointment of a first-round elimination might change.”
Oilers just need to get into the Stanley Cup Playoffs
The Oilers have dominated the Western Conference in each of the last two postseasons, and by all accounts, they are a team built for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
But with Stuart Skinner being replaced with Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram between the pipes — a tandem that is struggling mightily in the back half of the season — there is no guarantee that Edmonton even gets in. It's likely, but not a sure thing.
McDavid signed a team-friendly, two-year extension last fall, and how the next couple of weeks and months go could be very telling regarding his potential future in Alberta.
“My understanding is that the most likely scenario was that McDavid was giving the Oilers this season and next to try and win a championship and then it was decision time again in the summer of 2027 as to where everything stood,” reported LeBrun.
“The reason for that is that I don’t think McDavid wants to just walk out the door in '28 as an unrestricted free agent and not have the Oilers get something in return. The summer of 2027, if he decides it’s time to leave, would be one year out from his contract expiry and allow the Oilers to gain something out of a trade, albeit a trade in which he controls his destination. Now, there’s obviously a world in which he signs another extension and spends his entire career in Edmonton. Let’s not discount that.”
No one can truly know what McDavid is thinking as he approaches the 1,200 point mark, but all that is on his mind is winning a Stanley Cup. And if he can't do that over the next two seasons in Edmonton, there's a very real chance that he moves on from the only NHL franchise he's ever known.
