Mega-star bar will keep rising, tax advantages, and 5 other NHL items

LAS VEGAS - Connor McDavid, the best hockey player of the salary-cap era, owned the highest salary-cap hit in the NHL for five seasons in his early 20s.

Finally, in 2023-24, somebody surpassed McDavid's $12.5-million average annual value, as Nathan MacKinnon signed for an extra $100,000 a year. This season, Auston Matthews will be the top earner at $13.25 million. Next season, Leon Draisaitl is slated to take the throne at a whopping $14 million.

In each instance, there's a sense that these cap hits aren't simply a splashy headline. No, each of the sport's mega-stars is raising the bar - selfishly for a fatter bank account, yes, but also to help advance the sport.

McDavid's eight-year contract expires at the end of the 2025-26 season, which means he's eligible to sign an extension with the Edmonton Oilers in less than 10 months. Do he and his running mate Draisaitl feel a responsibility to set a new standard for compensation across the league?

"I don't know, my agent's sitting over there. I think he'd like for me to say yes," McDavid said Wednesday with a laugh, as he nodded toward the back of a ballroom at Encore hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, where his agent, Judd Moldaver of Wasserman, was watching McDavid speak with national media.

"At the end of the day, I'm going to do what's best for my family," McDavid continued in a more serious tone. "I'm going to do what's best for my chance to win and win many times over again. That's how I'll answer that question."

Draisaitl's response to the same question was a little more revealing.

"I don't think I necessarily pushed my contract all the way to the limit. I'd like to state that," he said at the annual preseason player media tour organized by the NHL and NHLPA. "But I am very happy with it. I'm content with it."

Draisaitl later added, "Each one of us, if we can bump it up and get more money into hockey and get the players some higher salaries (across the board), I think every player would probably say the same and all be for it."

McDavid, who'll likely make a minimum of $16 million on his next deal, is a good bet to stay in Edmonton. The Draisaitl extension alone is a strong indicator, seeing as the two are extremely close off the ice and a generational pairing on it. They just lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final by a single goal.

Draisaitl will be 37 at the end of his bar-raising deal - a career Oiler. If McDavid signs for another eight years, too, he'll also be 37 upon expiry.

"He's going to do what's best for him," Draisaitl said. "I did what I thought was best for me at the time. We've got a lot of great people within our organization that are really smart hockey people and that will put a team around us that can compete for the Stanley Cup for many years to come. We have to make sure that we continue to push the pace and lead the right way."

Daly, players on tax advantages

Florida, Nevada, Texas, Tennessee, and Washington are among the nine U.S. states with no income tax. Four of the past five Stanley Cup champions call one of those states home, while two other teams, the Kraken and Predators, landed several high-profile free agents this past offseason.

Coincidence?

People around the league are beginning to wonder if, one, these no-tax clubs have gained a sustainable unfair advantage in the salary-cap world, and, two, if the league office is going to do anything to level the financial playing field.

To answer the second concern first, no, the NHL doesn't currently view it as a front-burner issue, according to deputy commissioner Bill Daly. Players move around for various non-tax reasons, Daly noted, and many teams in high-tax areas remain desirable to players. Plus, anything relating to a potential adjustment to salary-cap calculations is far more complicated than it seems.

"I don't think this issue is at the level of trying to push something through, particularly without really giving it some advanced, thorough thought and running it through all the potential channels," Daly said Tuesday while also acknowledging there's been league-level conversations about the hot topic.

"Because I think sometimes when you rush to do something based on chatter, you step into a hole sometimes and the unintended consequences bear their heads. We continue to be satisfied with the level of competition in the league and how competitive it is, and we'll continue to monitor it, and if we can make it better, we will."

This theory of, say, the Panthers having a leg up because of a favorable tax situation may be true, but it doesn't capture all that the franchise and market have to offer - fantastic weather, minimal pressure from fans and media, and, most importantly, a championship-caliber ownership group, staff, and roster.

Nor does it recognize previous eras in which Florida wasn't a destination.

"You're in a business, not going to be making this kind of money for the rest of my life, you try and make as much as you can," said Sam Reinhart, who signed a team- and player-friendly eight-year, $69-million contract extension with the Panthers on July 1. "(There's many) things you balance. It just so happens that it's tax-free in one of the better places to play."

Predators forward Filip Forsberg added: "Every place certainly has its advantages, whether it's lifestyle, taxes is certainly a part of it, and at the end of the day, that does play quite a bit of difference in our salary. It's a fair point (about the notable disparity in tax rates). I'm not disagreeing with it. It's above my pay grade whether to decide if it's right or wrong."

At least one player, Senators forward Shane Pinto, would welcome a tweak.

"They have to overpay guys to come to Canada every time," he said. "That messes up the cap. So I think they do have to find a way try to even it out. I know it's not easy (to implement change) because it's been like that forever. But I think it'd be nice to have an even playing field for that."

Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas provided the most succinct analysis: "I don't think the NHL should be stepping into tax problems," he said. "If they want to change it, maybe we should change the playoff format, too."

Eichel on 'sticking with my guns'

The player media tour is a unique event in the NHL calendar. It's designed specifically to promote the league's teams and stars. Marquee players show up tanned, refreshed, and optimistic, willing to talk about basically any topic.

Jack Eichel was especially reflective in his session with reporters from a handful of national outlets, including theScore. The Golden Knights center took a basic question about what it's like to play for an organization that prioritizes winning over everything else, and, without additional prodding, looped in some feelings about his old club, the perpetually rebuilding Sabres.

"I went from one polar opposite to the other. It was almost like in Buffalo for a few years there, we were always kind of working towards the future. It was never about right now," Eichel said.

"I understand that situation was about getting draft picks, developing them, and working towards, 'OK, well, what can we be like in a year or two years? Whatever it might be from now.' But, at the same time, when you're in the situation where you're the player representing the team every day on the ice, it's like, 'OK, I want to win, I want to be competitive now.'

"To be able to play in a place (like Vegas), where the goal and the standard every season is to be the last team, it's the best. It's what you want as a player. You have the utmost confidence in management and ownership to make our team as good as they possibly can every year to try and win the ultimate goal. As a player, I think that's all you can ask for."

Eichel, the second pick in the 2015 NHL draft, was traded from Buffalo to Vegas in late 2021 in large part due to a disagreement over how to treat a herniated disc in his neck. The Sabres wanted Eichel to undergo fusion surgery, whereas Eichel strongly preferred artificial disc replacement surgery.

While winning the 2023 Cup is Eichel's biggest source of pride through nine seasons, not far behind is "sticking with my guns" in the leadup to the trade.

"It's not so much the medical stuff," explained Eichel, who turns 28 in October. "Obviously, that was important. But (it's about) standing up for what you believe in, not letting someone tell you what you can and can't do."

"That whole situation changed my life," he added. "It got me here in Vegas. It all worked out. I'm happy about it. That's probably what I'm most proud of."

Quick hits

Stache life: Nashville's Forsberg would be a superstar if he played in a traditional hockey market. The Swedish winger has tantalizing skill, an affable personality, and a sweet handlebar moustache. Forsberg's curly stache, which he first started rocking in the early days of the pandemic, is his defining physical trait and a conversation starter every time he walks into a room. The Predator had reporters howling when he casually noted that his stache has over time become a "self-playing piano." It apparently requires little maintenance - only a few flicks of a tiny beard comb and it's camera-ready.

Avs woes: Most NHL fans know Valeri Nichushkin is suspended until at least November and Gabriel Landeskog's attempting to return from a career-threatening injury. What's flown under the radar with regards to lineup concerns in Colorado is Artturi Lehkonen's murky status. "He's not starting the season," Nathan MacKinnon reported Tuesday. "So, that's three pretty good players in our top six who are out. But hopefully (their absences aren't) too long." MacKinnon correctly called Nichushkin, Landeskog, and Lehkonen the Avs' three best defensive forwards. "Our five-on-five (results) might not be the best without those guys," MacKinnon said, before adding that he, Mikko Rantanen, and Jonathan Drouin will need to do "some heavy lifting" on the top two lines and that goaltending and special teams will need to be sharp.

Whoops: The newest NHL franchise will be called Utah Hockey Club until its permanent identity comes into effect for the 2025-26 season. This summer, the team asked its fans to vote on six finalist nicknames - Utah HC, Blizzard, Mammoth, Outlaws, Venom, and Yeti - but didn't announce the results. Well ... Clayton Keller may have accidentally revealed the winner on Tuesday. When Keller was asked which nickname he's personally pulling for, he said, "It seems like it's going to be Yeti, so I'm good with that." Keller then nervously looked around the room, as if he'd just realized he wasn't supposed to say anything. So, yeah, consider "Utah Yeti" (not "Utah Yetis") a real front-runner.

Perspectives: Blues center Robert Thomas shared a fun story about how he found out about the Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway offer sheets. "I was sitting with a couple of the Oilers when the news broke," he said. Thomas, McDavid, Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse, and Zach Hyman were all eating lunch after a workout when someone's phones buzzed. "They weren't too happy," is how Thomas described the reaction from the four Oilers. True? "Connor and I weren't sitting there pouting like little babies. Let's be real here," Draisaitl said, jokingly taking offense to Thomas' framing. "Two young kids that would have been the future of our team, and two talented young kids. Of course, you want to keep guys like that, but at the end of the day, that's in the rulebook and you're allowed to do that. We decided not to match it and you move on."

John Matisz is theScore's senior NHL writer. Follow John on Twitter (@MatiszJohn) or contact him via email (john.matisz@thescore.com).

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