Bouchard remains the Edmonton Oilers’ top unsigned RFA.
Player Overview
Selected 10th overall by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2018 NHL Draft, Bouchard was one of several high-end, offensive defensemen at the top of his draft class.
After completing his junior career with the OHL’s London Knights, the defenseman spent his first two professional seasons outside the NHL. Bouchard played with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors in 2019-20, posting great numbers, before spending much of the shortened 2020-21 season in Sweden’s second-highest professional league.
However, by the 2021-22 season, Bouchard emerged as a regular member of the Oilers lineup and registered an excellent 12 goals and 43 points in 82 games during his first full NHL year. Then while his numbers didn’t climb in the regular season this year, he had an excellent playoff run with the Oilers, registering 17 points in just 12 games.
Bouchard still has room to grow his game defensively and doesn’t always use his size to his advantage in battles, which holds him back from a larger role. Turning just 24 years old this year though, he has lots of time to round out his game. With a great shot and a high offensive ceiling, the hope is that Bouchard could develop into a top-pairing defenseman.
What We Know
- Given the Oilers’ cap situation, a bridge deal for Bouchard seems likely.
- Elliotte Friedman reported on 32 Thoughts that he heard Bouchard’s deal could come in at two years, with a cap hit between $3.5M and $4M.
Comparables
Below, we take a look at contract projections for different possible terms. For more information on the stats/tables used in the projection, visit the About the Site page.
Note: The comparables used are defensemen who signed their contract at a similar age. All ages listed are related to how old the player was by Dec. 31 in the first year of their contract.
8 YEARS
Looking at eight-year comps, there isn’t a ton to work with.
| Player | Age | First Year of Contract | Signing Year P/82 | Career P/82 | Signing Year TOI | Career TOI | Contract | On $83.5M Cap Hit |
| Evan Bouchard | 24 | 2023 | 40 (82GP) | 40 (184GP) | 18:31 | 18:34 | ||
| Charlie McAvoy | 25 | 2022 | 48 (51GP) | 42 (235GP) | 24:00 | 22:51 | $9.50M 8 years | $9.62M 8 years |
| Miro Heiskanen | 22 | 2021 | 40 (55GP) | 38 (205GP) | 24:58 | 23:50 | $8.45M 8 years | $8.66M 8 years |
| Aaron Ekblad | 21 | 2017 | 38 (78GP) | 39 (159GP) | 21:41 | 21:45 | $7.50M 8 years | $8.35M 8 years |
| Jacob Trouba | 25 | 2019 | 50 (82GP) | 36 (408GP) | 22:53 | 22:53 | $8.00M 8 years | $8.20M 8 years |
| Thomas Chabot | 23 | 2020 | 64 (70GP) | 49 (134GP) | 24:17 | 20:58 | $8.00M 8 years | $8.20M 8 years |
| Mike Matheson | 24 | 2018 | 17 (81GP) | 17 (84GP) | 21:03 | 20:56 | $4.88M 8 years | $5.13M 8 years |
| *Mikey Anderson | 24 | 2023 | 19 (55GP) | 16 (172GP) | 21:49 | 20:55 | $4.13M 8 years | $4.13M 8 years |
The issue is that while Bouchard has comparable production to some players listed, his ice time is drastically different.
As a result, we know he’d be lower than $8M, given anyone at that range or above had much higher ice time (and similar, if not better production). On the flip side though, all we know is that on the low end, he’d be significantly higher than Mike Matheson’s $5.13M adjusted cap hit. It would likely come a lot closer to the likes of McAvoy, Heiskanen, Ekblad and Trouba, likely at $7M per year per year or higher, as opposed to Matheson’s $5M+ range. Still it’s hard to judge exactly where we could expect it to come in.
As a result, the best idea of an eight-year deal (keeping in mind the defined range above) may be to look at comps for a seven-year deal and project and eight-year deal to come in a little higher than that.
7 YEARS
We do see more seven-year deal comparables around Bouchard’s stats, but it’s still hard to determine a range for a contract.
| Player | Age | First Year of Contract | Signing Year P/82 | Career P/82 | Signing Year TOI | Career TOI | Contract | On $83.5M Cap Hit |
| Evan Bouchard | 24 | 2023 | 40 (82GP) | 40 (184GP) | 18:31 | 18:34 | ||
| **Adam Fox | 24 | 2022 | 72 (64GP) | 60 (134GP) | 24:39 | 21:39 | $9.50M 7 years | $9.62M 7 years |
| Nick Leddy | 24 | 2015 | 33 (62GP) | 30 (320GP) | 20:11 | 18:26 | $5.50M 7 years | $6.43M 7 years |
| Jaccob Slavin | 24 | 2018 | 34 (82GP) | 31 (145GP) | 23:26 | 22:22 | $5.30M 7 years | $5.57M 7 years |
| Shea Theodore | 23 | 2018 | 39 (61GP) | 33 (114GP) | 20:21 | 19:14 | $5.20M 7 years | $5.46M 7 years |
| Samuel Girard | 22 | 2020 | 27 (82GP) | 26 (155GP) | 19:54 | 18:50 | $5.00M 7 years | $5.12M 7 years |
| Oscar Klefbom | 23 | 2016 | 27 (60GP) | 24 (77GP) | 22:00 | 20:38 | $4.17M 7 years | $4.77M 7 years |
| Mattias Samuelson | 23 | 2023 | 20 (42GP) | 18 (54GP) | 20:00 | 19:33 | $4.28M 7 years | $4.28M 7 years |
We know he’d be below Fox’s $9.6M adjusted cap hit and above any of Samuelsson, Klefbom or Girard. The closest comps would be Leddy, Slavin and Theodore, but even these aren’t great.
Theodore had quite a bit less NHL experience, lower career production and only slightly higher ice time. As a result, we know Bouchard would come in above Theodore’s $5.5M adjusted cap hit.
With Slavin though it’s an interesting case where he did have lower production than Bouchard, but his ice time was similar and his NHL experience wasn’t as low as Theodore’s. There’s an argument to be made that due to the discrepancy in ice time and the production not being that massive of a difference, that Bouchard should come in lower than Slavin did.
That said, the best comp available may be Nick Leddy. While the deal was from eight years ago, Leddy had similar ice time to Bouchard and even though his production was a little lower, he also had significantly more NHL experience at the time of signing, which would often drive up the price.
So while it’s a little hard to tell just how much higher Bouchard would come in than the $5.5M mark, Leddy’s $6.5M adjusted cap hit on a seven-year deal is probably the best comp we’ve got.
6 YEARS
At six years, we actually do get a fairly defined range for what Bouchard’s deal could look like.
| Player | Age | First Year of Contract | Signing Year P/82 | Career P/82 | Signing Year TOI | Career TOI | Contract | On $83.5M Cap Hit |
| Evan Bouchard | 24 | 2023 | 40 (82GP) | 40 (184GP) | 18:31 | 18:34 | ||
| Cale Makar | 23 | 2021 | 82 (44GP) | 76 (101GP) | 24:19 | 22:27 | $9.00M 6 years | $9.22M 6 years |
| Quinn Hughes | 22 | 2021 | 60 (56GP) | 62 (129GP) | 22:48 | 22:08 | $7.85M 6 years | $8.04M 6 years |
| Ivan Provorov | 22 | 2019 | 26 (82GP) | 32 (246GP) | 25:07 | 23:45 | $6.75M 6 years | $6.92M 6 years |
| Dougie Hamilton | 22 | 2015 | 48 (72GP) | 38 (178GP) | 21:20 | 19:32 | $5.75M 6 years | $6.72M 6 years |
| Seth Jones | 22 | 2016 | 31 (81GP) | 28 (240GP) | 22:05 | 20:32 | $5.40M 6 years | $6.18M 6 years |
| Rasmus Ristolainen | 22 | 2016 | 41 (82GP) | 27 (194GP) | 25:17 | 22:19 | $5.40M 6 years | $6.18M 6 years |
| Hampus Lindholm | 22 | 2016 | 29 (80GP) | 32 (236GP) | 22:00 | 21:04 | $5.25M 6 years | $6.01M 6 years |
| Esa Lindell | 25 | 2019 | 32 (82GP) | 26 (239GP) | 24:20 | 22:39 | $5.80M 6 years | $5.94M 6 years |
| Morgan Rielly | 22 | 2016 | 36 (82GP) | 32 (236GP) | 23:14 | 20:30 | $5.00M 6 years | $5.72M 6 years |
| Brady Skjei | 24 | 2018 | 25 (82GP) | 31 (169GP) | 21:02 | 19:12 | $5.25M 6 years | $5.51M 6 years |
| Noah Hanifin | 21 | 2018 | 33 (79GP) | 28 (239GP) | 18:52 | 18:14 | $4.90M 6 years | $5.15M 6 years |
| Shayne Gostisbehere | 24 | 2017 | 42 (76GP) | 49 (142GP) | 19:36 | 19:43 | $4.50M 6 years | $5.01M 6 years |
| Jonas Brodin | 22 | 2015 | 20 (71GP) | 20 (195GP) | 24:10 | 23:50 | $4.17M 6 years | $4.88M 6 years |
| Jakob Chychrun | 21 | 2019 | 23 (50GP) | 24 (118GP) | 20:15 | 18:11 | $4.60M 6 years | $4.71M 6 years |
| *OIli Maatta | 22 | 2016 | 25 (53GP) | 29 (151GP) | 19:36 | 19:11 | $4.08M 6 years | $4.67M 6 years |
| Rasmus Andersson | 24 | 2020 | 26 (70GP) | 21 (160GP) | 19:56 | 17:43 | $4.55M 6 years | $4.66M 6 years |
| Damon Severson | 23 | 2017 | 32 (80GP) | 28 (203GP) | 20:21 | 19:59 | $4.17M 6 years | $4.64M 6 years |
| John Marino | 24 | 2021 | 21 (52GP) | 30 (108GP) | 20:44 | 20:29 | $4.40M 6 years | $4.51M 6 years |
| Brett Pesce | 24 | 2018 | 20 (82GP) | 20 (151GP) | 21:12 | 20:05 | $4.03M 6 years | $4.23M 6 years |
| Brandon Carlo | 25 | 2021 | 12 (27GP) | 14 (324GP) | 18:43 | 20:13 | $4.10M 6 years | $4.20M 6 years |
Bouchard would come in above the $5.5M mark, based on the comps available. He had better stats than most players listed on the lower end of the table, and looking around the the $5.5M range, Bouchard had better production and only slightly lower ice time than Skjei and Hanifin. The only player listed with a lower adjusted cap hit that was comparable to Bouchard was Shayne Gostisbehere, but looking at all other comps, it seems likely that Gostisbehere’s deal at the time was simply an underpayment.
Looking at the higher end of the range though, Bouchard is certainly below any of Makar, Hughes or Provorov, based on production and usage.
As a result, the range on a six-year deal would likely be Rielly’s $5.7M adjusted cap hit to Hamilton’s $6.7M adjusted cap hit.
There’s also really an argument for him to fall on either the higher or lower end of that range. On the high end, Hamilton’s career ice time wasn’t very high, and Bouchard also had the better carer production. But Hamilton’s strong signing year would likely leave Bouchard coming in below Hamilton’s number.
At the same time, Bouchard has the better production than most other comps within that range. As a result, we’d likely see Bouchard some in somewhere in the middle of this range. Jones and Ristolainen may represent the best comps, as other right-handed defenders who had more ice time, but generally, lower production. So a six-year deal would likely leave Bouchard coming in around the $6M mark or a bit above.
If Bouchard was to take a long-term deal, six years would also likely be the shortest length. If a team isn’t getting at least six years with a top defenseman coming off their entry-level contract, they’ll almost always sign a bridge deal, given a four or five-year deal would essentially walk the player right to unrestricted free agency. As a result, there won’t be any projections listed for either a four or five-year deal.
3 YEARS
Of the possible bridge deals, three years would be the longest projected term. From the list of comparables, we can also establish ap retty defined range of what Bouchard could be expected to make.
| Player | Age | First Year of Contract | Signing Year P/82 | Career P/82 | Signing Year TOI | Career TOI | Contract | On $83.5M Cap Hit |
| Evan Bouchard | 24 | 2023 | 40 (82GP) | 40 (184GP) | 18:31 | 18:34 | ||
| Rasmus Dahlin | 21 | 2021 | 34 (56GP) | 45 (197GP) | 21:36 | 20:44 | $6.00M 3 years | $6.15M 3 years |
| Zach Werenski | 22 | 2019 | 44 (82GP) | 44 (237GP) | 22:54 | 22:08 | $5.00M 3 years | $5.12M 3 years |
| Charlie McAvoy | 22 | 2019 | 43 (54GP) | 42 (117GP) | 22:10 | 22:10 | $4.90M 3 years | $5.02M 3 years |
| Mikhail Sergachev | 22 | 2020 | 40 (70GP) | 38 (228GP) | 20:22 | 17:41 | $4.80M 3 years | $4.92M 3 years |
| Filip Hronek | 24 | 2021 | 38 (56GP) | 39 (167GP) | 23:23 | 22:38 | $4.40M 3 years | $4.51M 3 years |
| Noah Dobson | 22 | 2022 | 52 (80GP) | 37 (160GP) | 21:28 | 18:16 | $4.00M 3 years | $4.05M 3 years |
| Will Butcher | 24 | 2019 | 32 (78GP) | 38 (159GP) | 19:16 | 17:38 | $3.73M 3 years | $3.82M 3 years |
| Jared Spurgeon | 24 | 2013 | 32 (39GP) | 25 (162GP) | 21:33 | 19:27 | $2.67M 3 years | $3.47M 3 years |
| Erik Cernak | 23 | 2020 | 15 (67GP) | 18 (125GP) | 18:57 | 19:05 | $2.95M 3 years | $3.20M 3 years |
| Ryan Lindgren | 23 | 2021 | 26 (51GP) | 21 (116GP) | 20:00 | 17:59 | $3.00M 3 years | $3.07M 3 years |
| Martin Fehervary | 24 | 2023 | 20 (67GP) | 18 (152GP) | 20:00 | 19:40 | $2.68M 3 years | $2.68M 3 years |
| Adam Boqvist | 22 | 2022 | 35 (52GP) | 33 (128GP) | 17:03 | 16:46 | $2.60M 3 years | $2.63M 3 years |
| Philippe Myers | 23 | 2020 | 26 (50GP) | 21 (71GP) | 17:06 | 16:36 | $2.55M 3 years | $2.61M 3 years |
| Henri Jokiharju | 22 | 2021 | 14 (46GP) | 19 (153GP) | 18:23 | 18:00 | $2.50M 3 years | $2.56M 3 years |
| Alexander Romanov | 22 | 2022 | 13 (79GP) | 12 (133GP) | 20:24 | 19:07 | $2.50M 3 years | $2.53M 3 years |
| Jake Bean | 23 | 2021 | 23 (42GP) | 22 (44GP) | 14:32 | 14:16 | $2.33M 3 years | $2.39M 3 years |
On the upper end, we know Bouchard would be under the $5M mark on a three-year deal, given all of Dahlin, Werenski and McAvoy had better production and more ice time.
On the low end though, we know Bouchard would come in above Butcher’s $3.8M adjusted cap hit, given no player below that mark had a combination of production and ice time that would result in more value than Bouchard.
The best comps would be Sergachev, Hronek and Dobson, between a range of about $4M to $4.9M.
While Bouchard does have similar numbers to Sergachev, a couple of factors play into why Bouchard would get less. While his production was very similar to Sergachev’s, he also had less ice time in his signing year, fewer games played and Sergachev was coming off a Stanley Cup win, so ‘Cup tax’ was almost certainly a factor. So while Bouchard may not be far off in terms of being a comparable to Sergachev, there are factors pointing towards him coming in below Sergachev’s number, but not really any factors pointing to him coming in above Sergachev.
Comparing Bouchard to Hronek, the defender had very similar production once again, but his ice time was significantly lower, playing 4-5 minutes per game less than Hronek in his signing year and over his career. So it’s even difficult to justify Bouchard reaching Hronek’s $4.5M cap hit.
The best comp by far would be Noah Dobson. Like Bouchard, Dobson was already producing at a high rate at the time of signing, but wasn’t necessarily being given a huge role by his team yet. While Dobson had the better signing year stats, their career numbers are very comparable.
You could argue Dobson carried more value based on his signing year, but again, we know by comparing Bouchard to other players listed, he’s very likely to come in above the $3.8M range, putting him at least up around $4M on a three-year deal.
Based on the adjusted cap hit and the cap being expected to rise significantly in 2024-25, he could come in slightly above Dobson’s deal, but again, Dobson acts as the best comp by far.
2 YEARS
Two years was the length of a possible deal reported by Elliotte Friedman, and it’s one of the more common contracts we’d see for a young, productive defender coming off their ELC.
| Player | Age | First Year of Contract | Signing Year P/82 | Career P/82 | Signing Year TOI | Career TOI | Contract | On $83.5M Cap Hit |
| Evan Bouchard | 24 | 2023 | 40 (82GP) | 40 (184GP) | 18:31 | 18:34 | ||
| Tony DeAngelo | 25 | 2020 | 64 (68GP) | 43 (200GP) | 19:17 | 18:26 | $4.80M 2 years | $4.92M 2 years |
| Bowen Byram | 22 | 2023 | 47 (42GP) | 39 (91GP) | 21:53 | 19:54 | $3.85M 2 years | $3.85M 2 years |
| Brandon Montour | 24 | 2018 | 33 (80GP) | 29 (107GP) | 20:28 | 19:41 | $3.38M 2 years | $3.56M 2 years |
| Nick Leddy | 22 | 2013 | 31 (48GP) | 29 (176GP) | 17:25 | 18:47 | $2.70M 2 years | $3.51M 2 years |
| Jacob Trouba | 22 | 2016 | 22 (81GP) | 28 (211GP) | 19:19 | 18:54 | $3.00M 2 years | $3.43M 2 years |
| Darnell Nurse | 23 | 2018 | 26 (82GP) | 20 (197GP) | 22:15 | 20:19 | $3.20M 2 years | $3.36M 2 years |
| Travis Sanheim | 23 | 2019 | 35 (82GP) | 28 (131GP) | 19:34 | 18:04 | $3.25M 2 years | $3.33M 2 years |
| Josh Morrissey | 23 | 2018 | 26 (81GP) | 23 (164GP) | 20:27 | 19:57 | $3.15M 2 years | $3.31M 2 years |
| *Ryan Murray | 23 | 2016 | 25 (56GP) | 25 (134GP) | 22:31 | 20:54 | $2.83M 2 years | $3.24M 2 years |
| Cody Ceci | 23 | 2016 | 28 (75GP) | 22 (205GP) | 19:18 | 18:48 | $2.80M 2 years | $3.20M 2 years |
| Neal Pionk | 24 | 2019 | 29 (73GP) | 32 (101GP) | 21:10 | 21:30 | $3.00M 2 years | $3.07M 2 years |
| Matt Dumba | 22 | 2016 | 26 (81GP) | 24 (152GP) | 16:50 | 15:46 | $2.55M 2 years | $2.92M 2 years |
| T.J. Brodie | 23 | 2013 | 24 (47GP) | 22 (104GP) | 20:13 | 18:09 | $2.13M 2 years | $2.76M 2 years |
| Dante Fabbro | 23 | 2021 | 25 (40GP) | 18 (108GP) | 19:19 | 18:54 | $2.40M 2 years | $2.46M 2 years |
| Esa Lindell | 23 | 2017 | 20 (73GP) | 19 (77GP) | 21:52 | 21:28 | $2.20M 2 years | $2.45M 2 years |
However, Bouchard carries more value than most of the comps. He had higher production than almost anyone listed and most other defenders didn’t have significantly higher ice time. As a result, Friedman’s reported $3.5M to $4M range makes the most sense.
Especially looking at the likes of Leddy and Trouba, who each would have an adjusted cap hit of about $3.5M, Bouchard had much better production and fairly similar ice time. Arguably the only defender who we know carried more value at the time of signing was Tony DeAngelo, based on significantly higher production.
Of any player listed, the best comp may be Bowen Byram, who just signed his two-year extension with the Colorado Avalanche.
Byram did have the higher production and ice time but especially looking at the career stats of the two players, they’re fairly similar. While Byram did have much better signing year stats, you could certainly argue this is offset by Bouchard having twice the sample size in terms of games played.
As a result, we’d likely see Bouchard somewhere right in the middle of the $3.5M – $4M range, around Byram’s $3.85M cap hit or potentially only slightly lower.
1 YEAR
A one-year deal is very unlikely for Bouchard, but there are some comps below.
| Player | Age | First Year of Contract | Signing Year P/82 | Career P/82 | Signing Year TOI | Career TOI | Contract | On $83.5M Cap Hit |
| Evan Bouchard | 24 | 2023 | 40 (82GP) | 40 (184GP) | 18:31 | 18:34 | ||
| Justin Schultz | 24 | 2014 | 37 (74GP) | 40 (122GP) | 23:21 | 22:36 | $3.68M 1 year | $4.45M 1 year |
| Vince Dunn | 24 | 2020 | 27 (71GP) | 30 (224GP) | 16:16 | 17:02 | $1.88M 1 year | $1.93M 1 year |
| Torey Krug | 23 | 2014 | 42 (79GP) | 42 (82GP) | 17:31 | 17:29 | $1.40M 1 year | $1.68M 1 year |
| Mikey Anderson | 23 | 2022 | 12 (51GP) | 14 (117GP) | 20:07 | 20:30 | $1.00M 1 year | $1.01M 1 year |
Coming off an ELC, even if a player gets a bridge deal, it’s almost always two or three years. We can see based on the comparables that a one-year deal for Bouchard would result in a very reduced cap hit.
While he’d be above Dunn, Krug and Anderson based on a combination of experience, production and usage, he wouldn’t be near Schultz’s deal, based on the significantly lower ice time.
So while we can see a range of about $1.95M to $4.45M on a one-year deal, that’s about all we can bet on. Especially considering Bouchard isn’t arbitration-eligible, he’d likely come in on the lower end of the comparables and as a result, a two-year deal at minimum makes more sense.
Projection
The most likely scenario is a bridge deal for Bouchard, at two or three years (though a one-year deal is always a possibility). The ranges for a cap hit on a two or three-year deal are also fairly defined, while the one-year deal is a bit more difficult to project, based on a lack of comparables with similar production, ice time. and experience at the time of signing.
If the Oilers could clear cap room though, they’d surely want to lock in the defenseman long-term. That said, any long-term deal would be from 6-8 years, with a four or five-year deal being extremely unlikely.
A possible six-year deal does have a clear range as to around what Bouchard could make, but a seven or eight-year deal is a bit more difficult to project, based on a lack of comps.
Projections are below:
| Term | Projected Cap Hit | Maximum Cap Hit | Minimum Cap Hit |
| 8 Years | $7.25M | $8.00M | $6.50M |
| 7 Years | $6.57M | $7.50M | $6.40M |
| 6 Years | $6.17M | $6.75M | $5.75M |
| 3 Years | $4.17M | $4.90M | $3.83M |
| 2 Years | $3.75M | $4.50M | $3.55M |
| 1 Year | $2.50M | $3.50M | $2.00M |
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