The Minnesota Wild shook the hockey world with the massive contract extension they handed Kirill Kaprizov. Now, all eyes shift to Connor McDavid.
Karpizov and the Wild agreed to a massive eight-year deal carrying a $17 million annual cap hit — an NHL record by far — on Monday morning. Many are wondering just how long record will stick with the best player in the world needing a new deal in 2026.
Connor McDavid is on the final year of his contract with the Edmonton Oilers and will be an unrestricted free agent in July. With Kaprizov setting the bar so high, it presents a crossroads for McDavid and the Oilers.
Kaprizov has been one of the NHL’s top players since he entered the league in 2020-21. He was in early MVP conversations before sustaining an injury in 2024-25, scoring 25 goals and 56 points in 41 games for the Wild last season.
His best season was in 2021-22 when he scored 41 goals and 108 points in 81 games.
Despite how good his totals are, McDavid’s season-by-season totals dwarf Kaprizov's and could result in him getting paid more, and rightfully so.
McDavid has scored at least 100 points in eight of the nine seasons he has played in after sustaining an injury in his rookie season. The lone season he did not crack 100 points was when he scored just 97 in the 64 games before the 2019-20 season was abruptly ended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2022-23, McDavid scored an absurd 64 goals and 153 points in 82 games to win the most recent of his three Hart Trophies, which is awarded to the league’s most valuable player.
With the NHL’s salary cap set to go up to $104 million in 2026-27, McDavid could become the first player to ever receive a $20 million annual payday. The league maximum annual value would go up to $20.8 million with the new salary cap — 20 percent of the team’s salary cap sheet — and McDavid would be worth every cent of it.
That leaves McDavid and the Oilers in a bit of a pickle.
Does McDavid want to take the max and earn the payday he deserves, or does he want to negotiate to a more reasonable cap figure so the Oilers would be able to keep him around?
The Oilers are projected to have over $42 million in cap space, per PuckPedia, but will also not have a single goaltender under contract and have key players like Matias Ekholm, Adam Henrique, and Jake Walman to re-sign in the 2026 offseason.
Edmonton will have more than enough money to bring its star and captain back on a $20 million contract, but it could come at the cost of some of its depth yet again. It will also need to come up with a long-term solution for its goaltending woes after it proved costly in back-to-back Stanley Cup Final defeats at the hands of the Florida Panthers.
It also begs the question as to whether or not McDavid would want to be on a depleted Edmonton roster for the next eight years of his career, rather than finding a potentially better long-term solution elsewhere.
The Toronto Maple Leafs cleared some long-term money from their books with the departure of Mitch Marner and lined their books up to have enough to make a run at McDavid, and there are other teams in a similar position too.
What we do know now is that all eyes will be on Connor McDavid as the 2025-26 season rolls on.
