Gary Bettman praises Connor McDavid for his approach to contract negotiations

TORONTO — Days after Connor McDavid signed a team-friendly contract extension with the Edmonton Oilers — forgoing a raise on a deal he originally signed in 2017 — NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the game’s best player should be “commended” for his approach to negotiations.

McDavid signed a two-year, $25 million extension with the Oilers on Monday in an attempt to give management more flexibility to build a championship-caliber team around him. At least five NHL players will earn more than the league’s five-time scoring champion each year starting with the 2026-27 season.

“First of all, it’s a lot of money by any measure, and I think it speaks to Connor’s passion for the game and his commitment to Edmonton,” Bettman said Wednesday, before the Toronto Maple Leafs hosted the Montreal Canadiens in their season opener. “If I was an Oilers fan, I would be excited, and if I was his teammate, I would be excited to know that the team will have more flexibility in terms of building a team that has had even more success, if that’s possible.

“Let’s not forget: They’ve been to the Stanley Cup Final twice in the last two years. I think in the final analysis that speaks very well of a superstar considering his role in the game and his personal values.”

McDavid’s extension came amid a flurry of major signings across the league in recent weeks and bucking the prevailing trend.

Kirill Kaprizov, Jack Eichel and Kyle Connor each got an eight-year maximum term extension and got sizable raises in the process: Starting next season, Kaprizov will receive $17 million per year from the Minnesota Wild, Eichel will receive $13.5 million from the Vegas Golden Knights and Connor will receive $12 million from Winnipeg Jets dollars.

This elite group of forwards benefits from a rising salary cap, which has already been locked in for two more big jumps over the next two seasons. Bettman said the rationale for maintaining the cap through 2027-28 stemmed from a shared desire by the NHL and NHL Players’ Association to smooth out growth stemming from the hard cap imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We didn’t want this to happen all at once because it would have distorted salaries and would have been, if you will, unintentional and maybe unfair, to the players who happened to be free agents when it happened,” Bettman said. “So we’re thinking about how to make up for what the ceiling would have otherwise been if we hadn’t had a flat ceiling.”

The current cap hit of $95.5 million is expected to increase to $104 million next season and $113.5 million the following year.

Although some whisper that these numbers could end up being even higher due to encouraging revenue projections, Bettman flatly denied this idea: “I don’t know who is making this suggestion, or why.”

“If something dramatic happens in some way, we have the capacity together to deal with it, but our projections over the last 20 years when it comes to these kinds of things are pretty good,” he added.

Still, business appears to be booming across the league.

The NHL expects revenue growth to come from its move to an 84-game regular season next year — a change that was included in the CBA extension completed in June — and Bettman reiterated that the league continues to attract expansion interest from several cities even though it is not in a formal expansion mode.

One of the ripple effects of the recent batch of big signings is that the quality of the 2026 free agent class has been quickly diluted. However, Bettman doesn’t seem concerned about a possible loss of opportunity to generate fan engagement with less player movement between teams.

“I think a lot of fans like to have continuity and support for their players,” he said. “I mean, if you polled most fans, they probably don’t like free agency – I mean, it’s good for your business, in terms of story writing – but if you’re a lifelong fan of a team and you’ve seen a young player, a superstar in some cases, develop and grow, you like to see him stay where he is.

“I’m not sure I buy your premise.

“At worst, there are two sides to this coin. »