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One such beacon is obviously McDavid, whose feats of wizardry with a stick, a puck, and a pair of rocket skates is quickly becoming the stuff of legend. But Connor’s story will only end well if a viable team can be built around him. In the cap era, this only works if a critical mass of contributing players can be developed in-house and on the cheap.

Brandon Davidson is a poster boy of the type. His remarkable story continued to unfold over the past seven days as he returned from an injury in time to join the Oilers on their four-game eastern road trip and stepped right into the role of top minute-muncher. That’s right, he was first, second, first and first on the team in ice time over the four games, playing just a few ticks below 90 minutes of hockey. He scored a powerplay goal, a shorthanded assist, and held his own at evens with a net minus-one during a period the team twice got caved.

Now consider that Oilers’ ice time leader over that stretch is the lowest paid player on the team, his $585 K stipend a little above NHL minimum and a mere 10% of some of his more celebrated teammates. Now thatis what I call a value contract.

I can’t overstate it — in the cap era, value contracts are an absolute must. Every contender has them somewhere on their roster. So it was for the Oilers themselves in 2006, when guys like Shawn Horcoff, Fernando Pisani, Ethan Moreau, and Steve Staios were all ~million-dollar players as I recall, and every one of them a value contract. Guys a little further down the path, mind, and when their renewals all came up at once that summer the team was hooped. They remained good players by and large, but their value was diminished by the larger denominator of their pay scale.