Fox and Nurse: only players with base salaries of $12M

With the salary cap slowly rising and more and more highly talented players scoring by the ton, contracts in the National Hockey League are becoming increasingly lucrative.

The Connor McDavids, Auston Matthews and Nathan MacKinnons of this world pocket in excess of $12 million annually, which is enormous compared to what players could earn just a few years ago.

In short, annual contract values are on the rise in the NHL, and that’s not likely to change.

There’s even a trend among NHL teams to include a good portion, if not the majority, of the contract’s value in signing bonuses.

Indeed, more and more contracts are being built like the following one, that of Connor McDavid.

As you can see, in base salary, McDavid pockets almost nothing annually compared to his signing bonuses.

In theory, McDavid will earn only $3M this season in base salary. However, he will receive $7 million in signing bonuses.

In short, it’s a trend in the NHL, and one that gives way to surprising statistics like the following.

The only two players in the entire NHL who will pocket more than $12M in base salary are Adam Fox and Darnell Nurse.

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This is quite surprising considering that Fox and Nurse aren’t even among the top-20 players with the highest cap hit on their team’s payroll.

Fox earns $9.5 million a year, while Nurse earns $9.25 million.

However, this year, in base salary, the two defensemen are the only two who will pocket exactly $12 million.

Miro Heiskanen, Dylan Larkin and Drew Dougthy follow behind with a base salary of $11 million for next season.

Anyway, getting back to Nurse, this is another statistic that really shows how overpaid the defenseman is, which really hurts the Oilers.

Nurse’s $9.25 per year for six more seasons is far too much, and it’s really hurting the Edmonton Oilers, especially now with the hostile offers from the St. Louis Blues.

If only the Oilers would pay Nurse a reasonable salary, around $5 million, Stan Bowman would be in a lot less trouble with the Blues’ hostile offer sheets for Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway.

Both players have accepted hostile offers that, in total, would cost the Oilers around $6M if they matched the bids.

Except that, being already in the red, and therefore over the salary cap by around $300,000, the Oilers are in real trouble, and clearly won’t be able to match the two hostile offer sheets.

And even to sign one of them, the Oilers will have to move to make room.

All this remains to be seen, but let’s just say that Nurse’s contract is really hurting the Oilers, and it could continue to do so in the future, especially with Leon Draisaitl up for re-signing.

Overtime

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