Predicting Jake Walman’s next contract with the Edmonton Oilers

The offseason is upon us, hockey players hit the golf course, and we speculate wildly as to what the next season will look like. Today’s task is to predict what Jake Walman’s next contract will look like.

Next year will be the last of Walman’s three-year, $3.4M AAV contract that he signed with the Detroit Red Wings. Walman will turn 30 early next year. With next season being the last of his contract, it is expected that he will sign an extension this year with the Edmonton Oilers; perhaps before the season starts to avoid the distraction of negotiation during the season.

Walman’s credentials to re-sign

Walman joined the Oilers last year at the deadline and played 15 regular season games, scoring a goal and seven assists in that time. Walman was and, in my opinion still is, an underrated offensive defenceman. Bringing him in at the deadline was an extremely smart move and I believe we have yet to see the best of him.

He impressed last year in more ways than one. In last year’s playoffs, Walman saw the second most power play time behind Evan Bouchard and I would expect him to run the second power play unit this coming regular season. 5v5 playoff underlying metrics show Walman as the second best Oiler defenceman behind Bouchard, with an extremely encouraging xGF% of 55.59%. That xGF% would rank him 12th among all NHL defencemen over 1000 minutes played in the regular season.

What impresses me most about Walman though is that he is offensively a threat while defensively sound. Certainly you couldn’t call him a shut down D-man, but I believe he is more defensively sound than Bouchard. The thing is that Walman has never had a good stint with a really good offensive team like the Oilers. He played essentially no games with St. Louis, then went to Detroit who traded him AND a second-round pick to the San Jose Sharks for future considerations. I’m a big Steve Yzerman fan, but I don’t know what he was up to there.

Between San Jose and Edmonton last year, Walman put up 40 points in 65 games, a 50-point pace over 82 games. It will be interesting to see what he can do with a full season in Edmonton. I think we will see him surpass the 50 point mark.

Contract prediction for next season

The Oilers, like any Stanley Cup contending team, are pressing the limits of the salary cap, which will rise from $88M to $95.5M for the 25–26 season. As is stands right now the Oilers are just sneaking underneath it. The cap will rise again by $8.5M to $104M for the 2026–27 season, which will be the first year of any extension that Walman may sign.

The problem is that Connor McDavid, Adam Henrique, Kasperi Kapanen, Vasily Podkolzin, Mattias Ekholm, Brett Kulak, Troy Stecher, Stuart Skinner, and Calvin Pickard will all need new contracts for the start of the 2026–27 season. With only $8.5M more to play with, it’s clear that not all of them will be brought back. McDavid’s increase alone would probably take up half of that.

For that reason the Oilers would very much like to keep the AAV of Walman’s contract as low as possible. Given that Walman is pushing 30, something like a four- or five-year contract would be what the Oilers are looking for. However, Walman’s camp likely wants an eight-year contract, something that can be his last contract, excepting some late career one- to two-year contracts if he is still feeling spry.

The compromise lands us at six or seven years. As for AAV I am predicting $5M to $7M. One thing to consider is that the cap is rising $25.5M, almost 30%, in the next three years. Our conception of what a player is worth is going to change a whole lot. For that reason I wouldn’t be all that surprised to see Walman sign for higher than expected.

My final predcition is $6.5M AAV for seven years. Even three years from now that contract will look pretty cheap, by the end of the contract it will be not much at all.

stats from NHL.com, and naturalstatrick.com