Free agency day means a fresh episode of Oilersnation Radio is ready to massage your earholes and bring you up to date on everything going on with the Edmonton Oilers. On today’s podcast, the fellas discussed the Evan Bouchard extension, the NHL Draft, Kasperi Kapanen, and much more.

We kicked off the Monday episode of ONR with a delicious debate about where everyone is at with Evan Bouchard’s four-year, $10.5m AAV contract, and whether it’s not more of a problem that Bowman wasn’t able to lock in the max term. We also discussed the Oilers re-signing both Kasperi Kapanen and Noah Philp before they were able to reach free agency, likely with the plan of having both of these players start on the opening day roster. Chances are, the Oilers are going to be tight for cap space when October rolls around, and they’ll need cheaper deals on the books to fill holes in the roster.

With plenty of time left to go until the deals slow down, the boys walked through some of our former friends who signed elsewhere on Tuesday, including Corey Perry’s new deal in Los Angeles and Connor Brown’s contract in New Jersey. While we all expected a quieter day in Edmonton given the team’s lack of cap space, that doesn’t make it any easier to see contributing roster players sign for big smoke in other markets. Regardless, the deals signed in the early hours on July 1st don’t mean the Oilers are anywhere close to done, but that didn’t stop many Oilers fans from being disappointed anyway.

Regardless of what the Oilers have done or haven’t done yet, there’s little doubt that teams are spending big money on free agents with the salary cap expected to fly up over the next handful of years. In fact, one could make the argument that the Oilers could be better off avoiding some of these overpriced free agents, especially with the dollars that some mid-tier UFAs are signing on extended deals. Is that coping? Potentially yes.