The Edmonton Oilers signed a handful of key players and their head coach to contract extensions over the past few weeks, locking up the team’s core for the foreseeable future. Let’s go through the new deals for Mattias Ekholm, Jake Walman, Connor McDavid, and Kris Knoblauch, and what they mean for the organization.

That’s an AAV of $4 million per season, to do the math. The first year includes a $2 million signing bonus with a $2 million base salary, while the remaining two years are pure base salary. All three years come with a No-Movement Clause. This is overall a solid deal, and even though Ekholm was 35 when he signed the contract, it doesn’t count as a 35+ contract. The NHL, man, they love making things needlessly complicated.

Although there is some risk to this contract considering his age and the fact that he’s just coming off a major injury, Ekholm is widely considered one of the best defensive blueliners in the league and, believe it or not, has got some puck-moving game, too. Because they have a higher ceiling, these players typically age better because they’re coming down from a higher place and thus typically take longer to decline than most players. That doesn’t mean the contract doesn’t come with risk, but I would agree with Stan Bowman that the risk is manageable and calculated. The fact that he took more than a $2 million AAV haircut from his previous contract also shows that both he and his agent are very much attuned to where he is in his career and will help the team out going forward, much like Connor McDavid did — more on that later.

Think of Walman as a younger version of Mattias Ekholm with slightly less size. Walman showed great value to the league before his trade here last season, as he was able to put up 6-26-32 in 50 games for the rebuilding, offensively challenged San Jose Sharks, which is very impressive considering the lack of firepower and defensive help he had down there. He filled a critical vacuum on the team by forming instant chemistry with Darnell Nurse after the team had failed to find a legit partner for him since Cody Ceci lost his chemistry with Nurse. He immediately made an impact, putting up eight points in 15 games in the regular season and another 10 points in 22 playoff games, not to mention since he was playing on a better team, his plus-minus immediately shot up from minus-one to plus-five. This contract should age well, and the Oilers have locked up a key piece of their blueline for the long term now. The contract also comes with a full No-Movement Clause until June 15, 2030, when it reverts to a 15-team No-Trade Clause for the remaining three years.

Walman is a quality player who rounds out our top four, and now that we have him locked up long term, we can breathe a sigh of relief. He’ll be 36 by the time the contract ends, so just like with Ekholm, there is risk, but the risk is very minimal as Walman is coming down from a fairly high level.

That’s the same $12.5 million AAV he’s signed to now. This is Connor McDavid putting his money where his mouth is and showing that he’s committed to winning. No question, this is the great element of this signing. It also comes with an NMC for both years.

What troubles me about this signing is that it’s so short-term. Oh, I don’t blame Stan Bowman in the least, as both he and McDavid’s agent knew full well that McDavid had all the leverage in these negotiations, so Bowman could only pay him what he asked for as long as he asked for. Thus, the short term of this contract is not Bowman’s fault at all.

The bad news is the term. To me, what this says is that Connor McDavid believes in this team, but not enough to sign long-term. No one can answer this but him, but I have to wonder what this endgame is. Is it simply a ploy to light a fire under management and win the Cup before the end of this contract? Is he planning to go to Florida or Toronto in two years (oh, that last one will get any Toronto-based readers going….)? Is he planning to do something completely unexpected, like retire after winning? I have to think that last one is unlikely, but I’m just thinking out loud. Stranger things have happened.

I don’t know what Connor McDavid is thinking here. No one does except for him, his wife Lauren, and his agent Judd Moldaver. Of course, I’ve already written about how I think McDavid will only wear one jersey his entire career here, so I’m not going to do that again.

Terms were not released. This was always going to happen because Knoblauch has taken the team to the Cup Finals two years in a row, and why wouldn’t they want that guy back as head coach? All Knoblauch has to do is conquer the Florida Panthers, or at least not face them again in the Finals, and then he should be able to cement his legacy as an NHL head coach. If he fails again this year to get the team over the final hump, he risks going down in the history books as the head coach of the NHL’s version of the Buffalo Bills, who were a team that got to four straight Super Bowls in the early ’90s and lost all of them. I have to think that’s the last thing anybody wants.

That being said, all the ingredients are in place for Knoblauch this year. Key guys in McDavid, Walman, and Ekholm have been extended. There’s been a youth movement to replace the older veterans that either became luxuries we couldn’t afford or were underperforming, and guys like Matt Savoie, Ike Howard, and Noah Philp are proving themselves in the early going to different extents. Howard is arguably the most “underperforming” of the bunch, but I put that in quotation marks because when you’re a rookie pro two games into a career without setting the league on fire, that is hardly a condemnation. He’s stayed even in those two games, so even if he hasn’t produced offense, the good news is he hasn’t cost the team offense either. I say let the kid get his feet under him and then, as the season progresses, we should be fine. Maybe we’ll even see him in the top six, who knows? We’ve also got a new goaltending coach who has publicly said he can help both goalies get better.

Even Tkachuk and Barkov will be out most of, if not the entire, season on the Long-Term Injured Reserve, so after two long Cup runs, the Panthers may not be healthy enough or have enough energy to make a third Cup run, which should give the Oilers easier opposition in the Cup Final. This is assuming, of course, that they get back there.

Personally, I can’t think of another guy I’d rather have as head coach right now on the Oilers than Kris Knoblauch.