For those saying that McDavid will be the best player in the league for 10+ years, I strongly disagree.
Let's look at Gretzky as a comparable: he was, by a large margin, the best player in the world at 20. McDavid just had his 19/20 season. In Gretzky's 19/20 season he had 164 points and was the best player by a mile. McDavid was the 2nd best player in the league this year, IMO.
8 years later, Gretzky was playing for the Kings. Think about that. In the equivalent of year 7 of McDavid's contract, Gretzky was still great, but he was no longer anywhere near the player he was 4 years earlier.
Can McDavid have more staying power? Maybe. But I would argue two things:
1) for pure offense, players peak from 20 through 27.
2) (far more importantly), the league is much, much deeper than it was in the 80s. McDavid is arguably the best player. Arguable. Gretzky, at the same age, was in a completely different league than everyone else.
This year, Matthews had a better rookie season than McDavid did.
There are new stars entering the league now at a much, much faster rate than in the past.
Will McDavid be the best player in the league for all 8 years of his contract? I would bet it'll be more like 3 or 4 of them, tops. All 8? Not a chance in hell, IMO.
Is $13.25M too much for him? Not at all. However, this idea that he will be substantially better than everyone else for the life of the contract is off-base IMO.
So the real question is: can the Oilers build a winning team around that contract in a cap league? We shall see. But I think it will be very, very difficult.
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