DETROIT — It was in the lobby of the Book Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit, way back in 1939, that Lou Gehrig announced he would not play that day against the Tigers.
Thus ended his streak of 2,130 consecutive starts, and by July 4, Gehrig was delivering his famous, “Luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech at home plate in old Yankee Stadium.
Leon Draisaitl sat down in a lobby chair in that same hotel on Wednesday, an Iron Horse in his own right who almost never misses a game, healthy or hurt.
Clearly not as iconic in his sport, Draisaitl is, however, no less precious to Oilers fans than Gehrig was to folks in the Bronx. And from his seat inside this majestic old Motown hotel on Wednesday, Draisaitl spoke on his future as an Edmonton Oiler while smack in his prime as an athlete — age 28 with three 50-goal, 100-point seasons and a Hart Trophy on his resume.
He’s a Top 5 player in the National League — we’d say Top 3 — as handsome as he is skilled. Now that William Nylander has signed in Toronto — with due respect to pending RFA Elias Pettersson in Vancouver — Draisaitl is the next big contract watch in Canadian hockey circles.
“I know the situation come July 1. But there’s another side to it as well,” he said. “You know, the Oilers have a say in this as well. Come July 1, at least.
“After that, it’s up to me.”
The last time Draisaitl went through this, in the summer of 2017, Connor McDavid had just signed his eight-year, $100-million deal on July 5. Six weeks later, Draisaitl agreed to an eight-year, $68 million contract with an AAV of $8.5 million — a deal that turned into arguably the most team-friendly contract in the game.
Nobody knew how good Draisaitl would become. That he would win a Hart Trophy; that from the date he signed that deal to today, he would rank No. 2 in points behind you-know-who, notching 15 less goals but 131 more points than goals leader Auston Matthews.
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Not his agent Mike Liut, not then-Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli. And likely not even Draisaitl himself.
This time Draisaitl goes first, eligible to re-sign with Edmonton on July 1, or become a free agent a year later — precisely when McDavid’s current deal enters its final year.
“At the end of the day, he’s going to do what’s best for him, and I’m going to have to do the same thing for me,” Draisaitl said, on the topic of somehow being a package deal with McDavid. “We’ve had a lot of success together, and we would like to have more success as a team, of course. I’m sure at some point, there’s going to be some conversations.
“But at the end of the day, he’s going to do what’s best for him and I’m going to do what’s best for me.”
The choices are stark.
Either Draisaitl signs an eight-year deal this July and commits to spending his entire career in the relatively small, Western outpost that is Edmonton. There, an Extreme Cold Warning was in effect on Wednesday, with Friday’s high forecast at minus-30 Celsius.
Or, he could take this opportunity to go to a far sexier market like Vegas or Los Angeles, where his girlfriend/actor Celeste Desjardins would be closer to her work. Or be nearer his homeland, his Spanish villa and his summer home in Aurora, Ont., while playing on the East Coast in Boston or New York.
The possibility of a shorter-term deal in Edmonton exists in theory, but likely not in reality.
Either way, this is almost certainly the biggest and most important contract Draisaitl will sign. Of this, he is well aware.
“Oh yes,” he confirms. “There’s a lot of thought, a lot of conversation that goes into it. With family. With my agents, of course. Right now, I think everyone just wants me to focus on playing.”
Draisaitl sat there at the Book Cadillac, in an interview that helped to pass 30 minutes of a dull afternoon in gloomy Detroit. He was a willing participant, accepting an invitation to sit down and speak on the record. He wasn’t making any big statements, just answering the questions asked in his usual straightforward manner.
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If you were waiting, however, for an unequivocal love letter to the Oil Drop, we would ask you: When has a big-time athlete ever kneecapped his own contract negotiations with a pledge to the team he currently plays for?
Almost never, that’s when.
And when they sign with their first team, which happens more often than not in hockey at least, they reveal that leaving was never a serious option.
We’re not predicting it either way for Draisaitl. He owes this franchise nothing, and has given more than it would ever have asked or expected.
We know only this: Draisaitl is fanatical about winning.
And a Stanley Cup ring, alongside his close friend McDavid, are the two best assets the Oilers could bring to the negotiation table this coming summer.
“Of course, I want to finish the job. That’s why I pour my heart, my emotions — my body language, sometimes — into it every day,” he said of playing for Edmonton. “That’s the way I’m wired. I care a lot. Of course, I want to finish the job. And I want to finish it here.
“But there are lots of things that go into it. Lots of things that play a role in these situations. And at the end of the day, I’m going to give you the boring answer again: We’ll see.
“We’ll see how it plays out.”
