A short-term deal for Kailer Yamamoto appears most likely
@Kailer Yamamoto is among the many former first-round picks who haven’t signed a contract upon the expiration of their entry-level deal.
The No. 22 overall pick from the 2017 draft has firmly established himself as an NHL regular with the Edmonton Oilers over the past couple of years, but the team doesn’t appear ready to give him a long-term contract.
According to Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Sun, the most likely route for Edmonton and Yamamoto is a short-term bridge deal…
The bridge-term negotiation with Kailer Yamamoto has as much to do with the Edmonton Oilers’ tight salary cap as the jury still being out on where the young winger exactly fits in the big picture.
As Matheson says, the Oilers have a tight salary cap situation, so handing Yamamoto a long-term deal with a larger annual salary won’t work for the team right now. Also, Yamamoto doesn’t have arbitration rights and he’s coming off a season in which he scored just 21 points in 52 games, so he doesn’t have much leverage.
A pair of comparables for Yamamoto would be @Max Comtois and @Filip Chytl.
Chytil has 71 points in 186 NHL games and inked a two-year deal worth $2,300,000 annually in July. Comtois has 51 points in 94 games and signed a two-year deal worth $2,037,500 not too long after. Yamamoto, for the sake of comparison, has 52 points in 105 games, a better point-per-game pace than Chytl, and one that’s pretty much on par with Comtois.
The Oilers would surely like to get Yamamoto signed to a cheap two-year deal, but, if he winds up inking a one-year contract, the team might have to decide between him and fellow right-winger @Jesse Puljujarvi next summer. Both players would be restricted free agents in this case and the team’s cap situation isn’t getting any easier.