Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers are currently in the midst of contract negotiations and the hope is that pen is put to paper before the start of training camp in September.

The star forward is entering the final season of the eight-year, $68 million contract he signed with the Oilers when his entry-level deal expired back in 2017. With Draisaitl eligible to reach unrestricted free agency for the first time in his career next summer, the Oilers will obviously have to make a significant offer for him to stay in Edmonton and forgo testing the possibilities of the open market.

The biggest draw for Draisaitl to sign with the Oilers, of course, is the prospect of continuing to ride shotgun with Connor McDavid on a team that’s built to compete for the Stanley Cup. Draisaitl has scored 347 goals and 850 points over 719 NHL games and has won the Art Ross Trophy and the Hart Trophy, which is the beginning of a Hall of Fame resume. There will be many quality suitors in free agency, but it’s difficult to find a situation more readily built for success than the one in Edmonton.

When Stan Bowman was promoted to the general manager position with the Chicago Blackhawks ahead of the 2009-10 season, his first major piece of business to deal with was contract extensions for young stars Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, who were both entering the third seasons of their entry-level deals. In early December of that season, both players inked matching five-year, $31.5 million contracts.

Those contracts were both worth 10.6 percent of the salary cap ceiling number the year that they kicked in, which became the standard for the league’s top young forwards when signing their restricted free agent deals. When Draisaitl signed his first big-money contract with the Oilers in 2017, it was worth 11.3 percent of the salary cap, a little higher than the percentage Toews and Kane got because Draisaitl re-upped for eight years rather than five.

After the 2013-14 season, Bowman again signed Toews and Kane to matching contracts. With the two forwards set to become UFAs the following summer, Toews and Kane both signed eight-year, $84 million deals that were worth 14.7 percent of the cap ceiling. Just as they did a few years earlier, Toews and Kane set a standard for what star forwards could earn when they reached the open market.

The standard that Draisaitl’s agent will point to now when negotiating his client’s unrestricted free agent contract with the Oilers will be 15 percent of the salary cap ceiling, which is what recent Hart Trophy winners Nathan MacKinnon and Auston Matthews got on their latest deals. MacKinnon signed an eight-year, $100.8 million extension with the Colorado Avalanche in September of 2022 and Matthews inked a four-year, $53 million extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs in August of 2023.

Draisaitl’s next contract will begin with the 2025-26 season. We don’t yet know what the salary cap ceiling will be by that point, but Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported in September of 2022 that “teams have been given some guidance on where the cap could be going over the next few seasons.” The projection of $88 million for 2024-25 was correct and the projection for 2025-26 is a $92 million cap ceiling.

If both the Oilers and Draisaitl are expecting a $92 million cap ceiling in 2025-26, the first season of his next contract, 15 percent of that total would see him earn a $13.8 million annual salary. Barring him taking a discount, that would top both Matthews at $13.25 million and MacKinnon at $12.6 million and establish Draisaitl as the player with the league’s top cap hit (at least until McDavid’s next deal starts in 2026-27).

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