Oilers bashed for letting Connor McDavid down with $12 million move

Oilers bashed for letting Connor McDavid down with $12 million move originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

>The Edmonton Oilers got Connor McDavid to sign a two-year contract extension, before the 2025-26 season, and do it at a discount.

>The hope would be that the Oilers would then give that money to a big-time player to help McDavid.

>Instead, Edmonton has paid Jason Dickinson, Connor Murphy and Trent Fredric.

>Yep, that's about as exciting as it sounds.

>The Athletic's Thomas Drance summed it up with a savage post on X:

>"Convincing the single most impactful individual player I’ve ever watched to leave money on the table, only to turn around and sign nearly $12 million worth of Connor Murphy, Jason Dickinson and Trent Frederic is genuinely wild work."

>MORE: It's time to ask a serious Matthew Knies question

>It's definitely a fair point.

>There's something a bit underwhelming about the Oilers deciding before free agency arrived to simply re-sign depth pieces like Dickinson and Murphy. They likely would've been there in a week or two.

>The Oilers didn't necessarily explore upgrades. They just gave out a good chunk of their open cap space to guys that aren't bad to have around, but also guys who aren't going to raise a team's upside considerably.

>So what now?

>The Oilers may have to explore trades. There are a lot of big names floating around in rumors.

>Darnell Nurse has requested a trade out of Edmonton, so that should get things moving more.

>The hope for Oilers fans would be that when the new season arrives, McDavid will have more impressive help around him than he does right now. But Edmonton hasn't exactly rushed to make that happen.

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