Oilers Come to Terms With Dubnyk and Petry

The folks that run the Oilers Twitter account were busy this afternoon announcing the signings of Devan Dubnyk and Jeff Petry, both restricted free agents, to two-year contracts. After getting everyone all worked up about the deals, those same people finally released the dollar values for the contracts: $3.5M average for Dubnyk and $1.75M average for Petry. My first reaction is that there is no way that the same man negotiated both of those deals.

The Dubnyk announcement came first so let's start there.

This deal is questionable to say the least. While Dubnyk clearly established himself as the team's number one netminder after Christmas last season with his best stretch of play as a professional, that is a very big dollar amount for a goalie with only 101 games played and a career save percentage of 0.910. He was certainly due a raise on the $800,000 he earned in each of the last two seasons but I wouldn't have thought he'd be getting anything more than $2.25M on average. Bob Stauffer suggested Tuukka Rask and Cory Schneider as comparables for Dubnyk, which is clearly bang on but I'd have thought Josh Harding and his $1.9M cap hit were much more appropriate. $3.5M isn't a ridiculous dollar amount for a starting goalie but he has to play the next two years like he did the last three months in order to live up to the number.

And then there's Petry.

Like Dubnyk, Petry also had a bit of a coming-out party last season playing in 73 games and scoring 25 points while averaging over 21 minutes a night. But while Dubnyk will struggle to live up to his deal, at $1.75M (the same cap hit as Andy Sutton, seriously) there is a very real chance that Petry will be a steal over the next two seasons. I'm not sure Petry is quite ready to play against the other team's very best on a nightly basis but he is very close. Locking up a player like Petry for two years at that value is some very good work. I would have preferred a slightly longer contract, something around four years with a higher cap hit, but assuming the free agency rules don't change in the next CBA, this deal will expire a year before Petry reaches unrestricted status. I imagine he'll cash in big time on that contract.