Praise to Connor McDavid ‘The Charitable One’ for signing team-friendly contract

He’s already been dubbed as McJesus, his face edited onto ancient robes. I called him Our Lord & Saviour on the Thursday edition of OilersNation Everyday. 

Now? Connor McDavid will be canonized after his death to boot. 

“Oilers fans get on your feet….Saint McDavid.” 

Wayne was the Great One. Connor is The Charitable One. (I’ll quit with the sacrilege for now). 

Wow. Are you kidding me? 

Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that Connor McDavid would re-sign for the exact same $12.5 million cap dollar as his wicked eight-year extension that kicked in 2018-19. 

It’s absurdly low. So absurdly low, the NHLPA should be incensed. It’s such a bad contract for the Players Association and such a massive win for the Edmonton Oilers that it’s hard to fathom. 

He isn’t even the highest-paid on the team. 

And McDavid doesn’t care. 

“It’s extremely unusual,” Oilers general manager Stan Bowman said at his media availability on Monday afternoon. 

It was a dialogue, never a negotiation. Dollars apparently were not discussed. 

“Usually, when you have a negotiation, it’s more about back and forth on the term or the structure of the deal. But that was never talked about. It was really just the other parts of where we’re headed and the vision for the team and how we’re going to improve, and all those types of discussions. Very unusual, but very interesting.” 

It’s such a low dollar figure compared to market expectations that McDavid has tilted the ice on Bowman, as if to say that there’s no excuse now. McDavid has handed Bowman all this unexpected cap space. 

The Edmonton Oilers must do anything and everything to win the Stanley Cup over the next three years. Of course, they’ve been trying. They’ve been oh-so-close after back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances. 

But it’s burn the boats time (and I don’t mean the horrific Joe Rogan comedy special). Scorched earth future potentially. Every possible future asset, every possible improvement, no stone left unturned… 

Jake Walman re-ups on the same day for seven years at $7 million. Ryder & Lisa are leaving morning radio to come to The Nation Network. 

I ask again, what the hell is going on?! 

“Making a push to try to win is the most important thing right now. And I think that’s a commitment that we’ve all made to Connor, we’ve had conversations like, ‘We’re here. We’re on the same page as you are. We want to win.’,” said Bowman. 

“The other part of it is, we’ve got some younger players, even this year, which we’ve made a commitment to our development staff and to recruiting players from Europe and North America. That’s going to continue to be a big focus for us. I think the goal is to try to do both.”

I’ll be fascinated to hear McDavid talk tomorrow about this contract. He won’t say much, I’m sure, but it’ll be fascinating nevertheless. 

He just showed up the best players in the world for wanting market value. He just galvanized the entire Oilers team for one goal. He has reinvigorated Oil Country. 

The Charitable One has silenced the heretics and signed perhaps the greatest bargain in NHL history.  

Hallelujah.

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