Report: Oscar Klefbom Agrees to Seven-Year Extension
8 years ago
It appears that Oscar Klefbom is going to be part of the Oilers for the long haul. On Saturday morning, TSN’s Ryan Rishaug reported that the defenceman had agreed to a seven-year contract extension with the team, with the deal to be finalized shortly.
This should be regarded as welcome news for Oilers fans, as Klefbom is a key piece of the team moving forward and he’s now signed long-term at money which will be very reasonable if he continues to develop as expected.
Welcome it may be, but it isn’t particularly surprising. Back in May, Jason Gregor suggested a long-term deal along the lines of Roman Josi’s contract in Nashville, while about a week earlier I’d suggested that Travis Hamonic’s lengthy deal would be a good comparable. Both of us felt this would be a good direction for the Oilers to go. Here’s how Gregor put it in his piece:
There are pros and cons to the strategy of signing Klefbom this summer as opposed to waiting until next summer, but I believe there are more cons to waiting than their are pros. Klefbom is only going to improve. He brings all the attributes the Oilers haven’t had in a young D-man in a long time. He is big, strong, skates well, moves the puck well and is offensive instincts are underrated. He can already break up a cycle in his own zone, something Justin Schultz can’t do and likely will never be excellent at, and he is only going to get bigger and stronger in the near future. He could have a breakout season in 2015/2016 and then Peter Chiarelli will have to pay him substantially more next summer.
There is risk in this deal. Teams that signed good young defencemen in the past haven’t always received full value; the deals signed by players like Luke Schenn and Jared Cowen now look like overpays rather than the bargains they were supposed to be.
The difference with Klefbom is that—with the caveat that sample size is limited—he’s already a fairly legitimate top-four NHL defenceman. He’s one of those players who passes both the eye test (big, strong, fast, can take and make a pass) and the analytics test (his underlying metrics are gold). He’s done it mostly while playing with Justin Schultz, a player who doesn’t have a history of making his defence partners look better than they are.
The structure of the deal suits the Oilers needs, too. Paying Klefbom $4.0 million in the near future isn’t a real problem, because cap space doesn’t really project to be a serious issue for the next few years. In the mid-to-long term, though, $4.0 million should be a bargain contract at exactly the time when Edmonton is facing a cap crunch.
This is a risk, and Klefbom’s camp isn’t necessarily wrong to trade potential upside for the security offered by $28 million, but on the whole this looks like a very strong deal for Edmonton.
Update:
That puts the full value of Klefbom’s new deal at just north of $29 million.
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