Edmonton Oilers rival may have signed worst value contract of NHL offseason

The Los Angeles Kings are desperately trying to find a way to be competitive now with an aging core and some young players breaking through, but they've been beaten the last three years in the playoffs by the Oilers. One of their additions this year was signing the veteran defenceman Joel Edmundson for 4 years at $3.85M a year.

According to NHL analyst Kevin Papetti, the Edmundson deal stands out as the worst value contract this offseason. Edmundson is a 31 year old, left shot, defensive defenceman who should be assigned bottom pairing minutes at most. In reality, his skating is below average, his passing is below average, his defensive results in the last few years have been well below average.

Throughout the league, Edmundson's actually best known for his cross checks - not an ideal reputation as a player. He isn't even a more rare right shot defender that brings inherent value, Edmundson is just a very replaceable physical defenceman - and the Kings paid a premium in salary and term to sign him. It's looking like a very poor deal made with a flawed understanding of how to beat Connor McDavid and the Oilers in the playoffs.

Shortly after free agency, Daily Faceoff published their list of worst free agent signings this year, and Edmundson also topped their list. The other worst deals of the year were named to be the Seattle Kraken signing Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour, the Nashville Predators signing Brady Skjei, and the Boston Bruins signing Nikita Zadorov.

In plenty of past years, the Oilers would be high up on the list of worst free agency deals signed. It's real refreshing now to have had a great offseason with the additions of Jeff Skinner and Victor Arvidsson, while other teams are the ones struggling to keep up.