Connor McDavid Deserves Better Than Oilers

The Edmonton Oilers have had two of the best players in the entire league for the better part of a decade, yet have been unable to reach their ultimate goal. With superstar talent like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Oilers have come close to winning the Stanley Cup, but have fallen short in back-to-back years.

The 2025-26 season is the final year of McDavid’s contract with the Oilers, making him eligible to sign an extension, but will he? Rumors have already started to swirl that McDavid might consider a change, and that might be what’s best for him.

McDavid has 10 NHL seasons under his belt, with seven trips to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Two of those trips ended with first-round exits with the Oilers reaching the Stanley Cup Final just twice.

Clearly, it’s not easy to win the Cup, but the Oilers falling short of expectations doesn’t fall on McDavid. He’s notched 150 career playoff points (44G-106A) in 96 games. He’s led the playoffs in scoring in three of the last four years.

Even Draisaitl has been pulling his weight, notching 141 points (52G-89A) in 96 games.

The issue is that, up until recently, the Oilers front office has never put enough effort into building solid depth. For years, they threw all their money at McDavid and Draisaitl, then overpaid for guys like Milan Lucic and Adam Larsson.

McDavid and Draisatil were clearly deserving of their paydays, but that's where the Oilers stopped building a successful team.

Goaltending was a horror show early in the McDavid’s career with a rotating door of names that would often land on subpar talent. Cam Talbot, Mikko Koskinen, and Mike Smith all held starting roles while missing postseason action.

Each of those names mentioned comes from the Peter Chiarelli days of the Oilers, but even under a new front office regime, the same issues persist.

Instead of Lucic and Larsson, it’s Evander Kane and Darnell Nurse. Better players, but still over bloated contracts for their talents.

Between the pipes is Stuart Skinner Calvin Pickard; again, decent goalies, but they completely disappeared at multiple times in their recent playoff run.

Even the front office made an interesting decision going from Chiarelli, to Hall of Famer Ken Holland, to recently banned from the NHL Stan Bowman.

The Oilers organization hasn’t shown many signs of improving or getting McDavid any help. The greatest player in the world deserves better and deserves a Stanley Cup championship.

McDavid and the Oilers were supposed to be the team of destiny this year, but it’s right back to square one. Is that something McDavid wants to sit around in? Or does he feel there’s a better opportunity elsewhere in the league?