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In years 1-4 and 6 of the deal, the money is split evenly between salary and signing bonuses. In years 5 and 7, however, the majority of the money comes in the form of bonuses, lump-sum payments that are 100 percent guaranteed.

It’s easy to understand why Lucic’s camp would desire such an arrangement, especially in 2022-23. The current NHL CBA expires at the end of the 2021-22 season, and this way in the event of a lockout Lucic will be able to pocket a $3.0 million signing bonus on July 1 and will only be risking a relatively small $1.0 million salary.

The difficulty of this for the Oilers is that in the event of a decline in Lucic’s performance, the team is going to be stuck. If, for example, events compel Edmonton to try and clear Lucic’s contract in the summer of 2020, a buyout would be almost entirely pointless because the team would only be buying out $4.5 million in total salary as opposed to a cap hit of $18 million over the final three years.

It’s the same problem that the Toronto Maple Leafs ran into with David Clarkson, and 2016 marks the emergence of these deals as the contract of choice for highly-paid forwards. Kyle Okposo, Andrew Ladd and Loui Eriksson all signed deals with similar structures in Buffalo, New York and Vancouver, respectively. Those three teams, along with the Oilers, are all betting heavily that these players will be worth their significant cap hit into their mid- and in some cases even late-30’s.

Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli acknowledged the risk, but pointed to mitigating factors in his July 1 press availability.