The Edmonton Oilers on Friday retained a key young member of their blueline corps, re-signing defenseman Tom Gilbert to a six-year contract believed worth around $24 million, or approximately $4 million per season against the Oilers cap.
Gilbert, 25, had a breakthrough performance with the Oilers in 2007-08, with 13 goals and 33 points in 82 games to lead all Oilers defensemen. His development may have been hastened this season by injuries to veterans Sheldon Souray and Joni Pitkanen.
Oilers general manager Kevin Lowe had to move quickly to re-sign Gilbert, as he was slated to become a restricted free agent on July 1st, which would’ve made him eligible to receive an offer sheet from a rival team.
Given Lowe’s much publicized offer sheets made last summer to Buffalo’s Thomas Vanek and Anaheim’s Dustin Penner, the latter of which proved a successful move by Lowe, it’s a good bet a rival club would’ve made Gilbert a target for an offer sheet.
This move will likely arouse criticism from some that Lowe overpaid to retain a second-year player who had one good season, but given the offer sheet possibility it was one he had to make, rather than risk allowing a rival club to set Gilbert’s market price.
It could also prove to be a worthwhile long-term investment for the Oilers. Gilbert meshed well with the crop of rising young players who were primarily responsible for the club’s impressive – but ultimately futile – late season stretch run, saving what otherwise would’ve been considered another wasted year for the Oilers.
Lowe is betting that Gilbert has now established himself as the team’s top defenseman, and at 25 has yet to hit his prime, meaning this new $4 million per season salary could prove to be a bargain over the next six seasons.
Gilbert’s new salary will now push the Oilers payroll for next season to over $37 million invested in 14 players.
With incoming owner Darryl Katz promising to keep pace with the league’s salary cap, expected to rise as high as $56 million for 2008-09, Lowe could have almost $20 million in available cap space to work with this summer.
Don’t expect Lowe to go on another free agent shopping spree, as he recently told the Edmonton media he intends to invest for the most part in his young stars.
Other free agents Lowe has to consider re-signing includes RFAs Jarret Stoll, Robert Nilsson, Zack Stortini, Denis Grebeshkov and Joni Pitkanen.
Of these, Pitkanen could prove the hardest to retain. Acquired from the Philadelphia Flyers last summer in a multi-player trade, the injury-prone Pitkanen saw action in 63 games this season, putting up 26 points.
Rumors out of Edmonton claim Pitkanen could be seeking a significant raise this summer, possibly well over $5 million per season, to re-sign with the Oilers.
Lowe has plenty of cap space if he wants to re-sign Pitkanen, but it’s doubtful he’ll commit to a long-term deal for that much to a defenseman with his injury issues.
Indeed, Gilbert’s new contract suggests that Pitkanen might no longer be part of the Oilers future, as Lowe might be more willing to put his faith in Gilbert, Grebeshkov, Ladislav Smid and a hopefully healthy veteran in Sheldon Souray next season.
Lowe could pass on Pitkanen and pursue an experienced defenseman via the UFA market or perhaps with another offer sheet foray.
With the NHL trade deadline now past the next notable round of player movement won’t occur until June, 2008, and most of it will be free agents signing with new teams.
While the focus as always will be on unrestricted free agents, this summer the threat of offer sheets is now a very real one, thus hockey fans will be nervously watching the contract talks of their favorite restricted free agent players as July 1st approaches.
Many teams haven’t wasted time this season, locking up their best RFA players to lengthy, long-term contracts now rather than risk another club either setting the price or plucking them away.
As a result, the list of the top RFA players has shrunk considerably since the start of the season, but there still remains some quality talent who, if unsigned by July 1st, could be tempting targets for offer sheets. It’ll be interesting to see how many of the following are re-upped by the end of June:
Anaheim: Corey Perry.
Columbus: Pascal LeClaire.
Detroit: Valtteri Filppula
Edmonton: Tom Gilbert and Joni Pitkanen.
Florida: Jay Bouwmeester.
Minnesota: Pierre-Marc Bouchard.
Montreal: Andrei Kostitsyn.
Nashville: Martin Erat, Shea Weber and Ryan Suter.
I'm Lyle Richardson, also known as Spector, Foxsports.com 's "Prince of Pucks".,which is based on the fact I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada and I couldn't think of a better byline. I've been an NHL hockey commentator since 1998 on my website, Spector's Hockey, and I'm a contributing writer for Foxsports.com , The Hockey News and Eishockey News. I'm also a regular on The Faceoff Hockey Show and a frequent guest on "The Late Crew" on The Team 1200 Ottawa.
