After A Second Straight Stanley Cup Finals Loss, Is It Time For Connor McDavid To Move On From Oilers?

It hasn't even been two days since the Edmonton Oilers lost their second straight Stanley Cup Final to the Florida Panthers, but it's already time to start looking ahead and wondering whether or not it is time for Connor McDavid — the best hockey player on the planet — to move on from the team.

It wasn't talked about much during the series, but McDavid will enter the final year of his 8-year, $100 million deal, which, at the time, was the biggest contract based on AAV ($12.5 million) in NHL history.

Since then, several players, including McDavid's long-time running mate Leon Draisaitl, signed bigger deals, but there's no question that whenever McDavid puts pen to paper, he will sign the biggest deal the league has ever seen.

But will that be with Edmonton?

Obviously, the Oilers will want that. The salary cap is going up a lot this season from $88 million to $95.5 million, and will continue to go up by even more each of the next few seasons, so the cap space should be there to get a deal done, and if it isn't, GM Stan Bowman will surely cut some deals to make sure they have the money.

But the stumbling block will be whether McDavid wants to sign there at all.

In the wake of the Oilers Stanley Cup Final loss, the focus will be on whether or not Connor McDavid will sign an extension with the team. (Photo by Brian Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images)

McDavid Wants A Cup And Should Go Wherever He Can Make That Happen

He's starving for a Stanley Cup, and despite two straight Cup Final appearances, if McDavid isn't convinced that the Oilers are trending in the right direction, why would he sign long-term in Edmonton? Why wouldn't he look elsewhere for a better situation? You can be sure that every single one of the 31 NHL teams would do whatever they could to bring McDavid on board.

I would assume that McDavid won't sign a deal until he can get a read on how Edmonton is handling the offseason. How the Oilers draft, who they bring in free agency,  and what trades they get done.

There are needs that need to be addressed, not the least of which is in net. Goaltending was an issue in the Cup final, and while I think it's unfair to pin all of the blame for the team's big losses on netminders Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard, the Oilers need a high-end netminder that they can rely on day in and day out.

Getting one of those is easier said than done, but if Bowman can cut a deal for a solid No. 1 goalie, that should help convince McDavid that they mean business. On top of this, they need some depth scoring, so maybe spending a little on middle-six forwards would help convince McDavid to stay as well.

However, if it becomes clear that McDavid is leaning toward not staying in Edmonton, that's when things could get wild. The Oilers would have to trade McDavid, because letting the best player on Earth walk next summer without getting anything in return would be a fireable offense.

But that wouldn't be simple either. McDavid has a full no-move clause, and he'd have to waive that to get a trade done. He'd likely only do that if the Oilers could work a trade with a team that McDavid would sign his next deal with. That could be tough.

We'll see how this plays out, but the longer McDavid goes without signing an extension, the more interesting it will get.