Baggedmilk on #theLOCKERROOM: Evan Bouchard’s deal is finally done

Happy Wednesday, Internet friends, and welcome to yet another chapter of your ol’ pal Baggedmilk’s adventures in radio. As I do every week, I jumped on the air with the boys on The Locker Room for a quick segment to talk about the Oilers while also offering my takes on anything else that’s going on in the world.

To kick off this week’s segment, we got started with a conversation about the balance of power in the NHL and whether or not the offseason moves everyone has made will shift what that looks like. I still think the best teams from last year will be very similar in 2023-24, but I also think there are a couple of teams that could make a real push for the playoffs. Changing gears, we looked at the Evan Bouchard contract that is finally coming down the pipe after Elliotte Friedman reported that it will be a two-year deal worth $3.9 million/season. While I think that’s in the ballpark of what was expected, I know there are going to be plenty of Oilers fans who are upset that Ken Holland couldn’t grind him down a little bit more. Either way, I’m just happy that this deal got done long before training camp so that we can stop talking about it already. Wrapping up this week’s segment, we looked at the goaltending situation in Edmonton and whether there will be more pressure on Stuart Skinner to perform than he experienced last year. On the flip side, will Jack Campbell have less pressure given that last year was pretty awful for him personally?