Edmonton Oilers sign Connor Brown to one-year contract
By Cam Lewis
1 year agoThis might be the least surprising news item of free agency day — the Edmonton Oilers have signed Connor Brown.
There had been talk for weeks that the Oilers would opt to move on from Kailer Yamamoto and that Brown would wind up being his replacement on the right wing and that’s exactly what happened.
According to Frank Seravalli, Brown’s contract features a base salary of $775k with $3.25 million in possible performance bonuses. Breaking down Brown’s contract to be performance bonus-laden is advantageous to the Oilers because his base cap hit will be only $775k and they don’t have to fit all of his possible bonuses under the cap ceiling. Per Cap Friendly…
Performance bonuses are only paid to the player if they meet the requirements as defined by the bonus. Performance bonuses count against the salary cap, however, a team can exceed the salary cap due to performance bonuses by the maximum performance bonus cushion amount of 7.5 percent of the upper limit
Brown spent his junior career with the Erie Otters and captained the team during Connor McDavid’s first two seasons in the OHL. In 2013-14, his final go-around in the OHL, Brown led the league in scoring with 128 points.
A few weeks ago, Brown appeared on Mitts Off with Luke Gazdic and talked about how he’d love to reunite with his former Erie teammate…
Luke Gazdic: Coming back home to Canada — will you look at that? And, you’re making me smile right now thinking about maybe a possible Oilers reunion, at some point in your career, have you thought about down the road like, “Man, it would be really cool to play with [Connor McDavid] again at some point.”Connor Brown: “You’d be lying to say no. Of course, it would be awesome to play with him. More so, over anything, he’s going to win a Cup here eventually. As a player, that’s what I want to do. I want to win. You’re a player and you want to win a Stanley Cup in the NHL, and that’s a big priority going into where you’re going to land. But you think about every scenario.”
Brown broke into the NHL with the Toronto Maple Leafs with six points in seven games at the end of the 2015-16 season. He scored 20 goals and 36 points in his first full season with the Leafs and inked a three-year, $6.1 million contract the following off-season.
Brown played two of the three seasons on that contract in Toronto before being traded to the Ottawa Senators in a multi-player deal involving Nikita Zaitsev and Cody Ceci. He scored a career-high 47 points in his first season with the Sens and re-signed in Ottawa on a three-year, $10.8 million contract.
Just like with the previous contract, Brown played out the first two seasons and got traded ahead of the third. This time, he was moved to the Washington Capitals in exchange for a second-round pick. He only played in four games with the Capitals before undergoing season-ending ALC surgery at the beginning of November.
The hope is that Brown can rebound from his injury and produce at the level he did during his days with Toronto and Ottawa. Given the deal is laden with performance bonuses, there’s very little risk for the Oilers.
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