Edmonton Oilers now fully committed to controversial cap feature

With signing bonuses now being capped at 60% of a player's salary, and teams having to adhere to a playoff salary-cap system, Canadian teams will be taking the brunt of these changes on the chin, and contending-Canadian teams even more so.

Drew Livingstone, aka Producer Drew, recently posted the Oiler's core-players' salaries on social media, a sight that never fails to raise a fan's eyebrows. Here is the list's of the core's salaries, which totals $46.25M

Draisaitl $14M
McDavid $12.5M
Bouchard $10.5M
Nurse $9.25M

Incidentally, no player with a salary of over $10M has ever won the Stanley Cup...but then again, hockey players aren't really that superstitious (tongue in cheek).

With a core-unit salary of just under 50% of next season's salary cap, the Oilers' face challenges to icing a competitive team, like a lack of flexibility in acquiring and retaining other valuable players, impacting depth and team performance.

In recent years, there has been an over-reliance on the team's core-group of players to perform, making it more predictable and easier to defend against. Look at last year's finals: Florida was constructed in a way that wasn't entirely reliant on core-players to succeed, as Edmonton's was, and were able to skate away with the Cup as a result. Florida's player-salaries were spread-out more evenly.

Contract extensions become an issue when a large portion of the cap is absorbed by a few players. When their contracts expire, the team may face difficult decisions about whether to extend them at a potentially higher cost, or let them walk, potentially losing valuable players to free agency. The Leafs were faced with this exact situation with Mitch Marner. The Oilers have a similar decision to make before Connor McDavid's contract expires at the end of next season.

Also, when a disproportionate amount of the salary cap goes towards a core group, it becomes more difficult to address specific weaknesses on the team, such as adding scoring depth, improving defense, or strengthening special teams, as the top players account for the bulk of the team's production.

Next season's increased salary cap may mitigate some of these issues, and even more so over the next three years, as the cap continues to rise. Yet, I believe we will see radical changes in the way teams construct their rosters, relative to the salary cap.

We've seen the kinds of mistakes that the Oilers' and Leafs' general managers have made by using their particular cap- allocation systems, which have ultimately led to neither team winning a Stanley Cup in recent years, and this with each club having an abundance of talent.

With the NHL salary cap increasing by $25.5M, the next three years will go a long way toward teams changing the way they deal with player contracts.