Raph Lavoie signs one-year extension with Oilers at NHL minimum

Published Jul 08, 2024 • Last updated 2 days ago • 5 minute read

Raphael Lavoie takes part in a pre-season game with the Edmonton Oilers on Oct. 4, 2023. Photo by Shaughn Butts /Postmedia

News from Edmonton Oilers this Monday morning, that prospect Raphael Lavoie has agreed to terms on a one-year extension that will pay him the NHL minimum salary of $775,000.

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It’s a two-way contract, with minor league terms undisclosed as yet though worth keeping an eye on.

Here’s why. A year ago Lavoie had reached the end of his Entry Level Contract, received a qualifying offer from the team, and signed it. Seems reasonable, no?

But that is not the way of modern cap-driven NHL. That qualifying offer was driven by a formula: Lavoie’s previous base salary, fairly standard to ELCs at $832,500, with a 5% raise. When he signed it, his resultant NHL salary was $874,125, some $99,000 over the NHL minimum. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but on a team that had started the prior season within $165 of the cap ceiling and ended it with a margin of exactly $0, it put Lavoie at a competitive disadvantage. He was fighting for a job as a depth winger with guys like Sam Gagner and Adam Erne, veteran NHLers who had come to camp on a PTO, then signed one-year deals at the minimum.

No surprise to this observer when Gagner and Erne wound up on the team and Lavoie did not, even as the squad had to risk waivers on the promising forward in the process. (He cleared.)

This being the ever-alert Oil Country, it was a matter of controversy right from the moment Lavoie accepted the QO. As colleague Kurt Leavins summarized in a late-summer post about the man then deemed to be the #2 prospect in the organization:

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More than a few eyes blinked this summer when Lavoie signed a 1-year, two-way contract extension worth $874,125. That was the club’s qualifying offer. More than a few people (me included) thought it would have been in his and the team’s best interests to recognize the club’s cap struggles. Sign a league-minimum contract instead, with a little more dough if he ends up in the AHL. It would have, after all, made it easier for Ken Holland to fit him into the lineup.

Turned out to be easier to fit Erne and Gagner into the line-up, even as they too lost their opportunity when Corey Perry was acquired at mid-season, then forwards Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick arrived at the trade deadline. Lavoie got a 6-game opportunity in November when Connor Brown was sidelined for a bit, and a seventh at Los Angeles in late December when Evander Kane was out, but got very little done in what was a very limited opportunity (just 7:17 ATOI with 0-0-0, -2 and just 4 shots on net).

The rest of the season Lavoie was a productive shooter and scorer in Bakersfield at the low-low price of $70,000, likely a good bit below the figure his camp might have negotiated in an NHL-minimum pact. More to the point, that signed QO almost certainly resulted in a reduced opportunity at the big-league level.

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This year he and his camp have seen the light and signed just such an extension, significantly lower in dollar terms than the current qualifying offer of $917,831 that would have been tendered. But that cap-minimum deal is in fact the standard in the modern cap world. Just ask fellow prospects James Hamblin and Noah Philp who both did the same in the last few days, eschewing a slightly higher value QO and instead coming to terms at the NHL minimum. Seems counterintuitive to take a lower salary, but at this point in a prospect’s career, it’s all about getting an opportunity and there is little to be gained by having a contract that puts you at a disadvantage.

UPDATE: The AHL part of Lavoie’s new deal is at a base rate of $200,000, with a minimum of $225,000 to be earned by the player overall. That’s a substantial raise over the estimated $133,000 he earned on his two-way pact a year ago, even with 15 days of NHL time.

Lavoie remains a strong prospect, though his window is closing. The big, truculent, shoot-first winger will turn 24 during training camp with under an hour of big-league experience under his belt. Meanwhile, he’s played 202 AHL games, where he has scored 71 times, comfortably leading Bakersfield in both shots and goals the last two seasons. In 2023-24 he posted 28-22-50, +1 in 66 games, ranking second on the club with 64 PiM.

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Can he make the next step? He’s been poised to do so for a while now, but it hasn’t come easily. His best opportunity likely hinges on the health of Kane, rumoured to be LTIR-bound at least to start the season. If he does, there is a big-truculent-shoot-first-winger-sized hole that will need filling, and Raph Lavoie will be well-placed to fill it. And this time there are no cap reasons to look elsewhere; it can simply come down to merit.

Bakersfield coaching staff returns. Mostly

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The coaching retentions are in the headlines, though a click through to the linked press release also mentions a couple of departures

The Bakersfield Condors announced today that head coach Colin Chaulk and assistant coach Keith McCambridge have signed extensions to remain in their current positions. Video Coordinator Kris Horn has also re-signed with the team. Goaltending coach Sylvain Rodrigue and assistant coach Nate DiCasmirro have both mutually agreed to part ways with the organization to pursue other opportunities. The team has begun the process to fill those two positions.

Chaulk was promoted into the head job when Jay Woodcroft was called up by Edmonton midway in the 2021-22 sseason, posting a 95-70-13 record and making the playoffs all three springs. Some observers are less than thrilled with his propensity to lean on AHL vets over NHL prospects, frequently a sore point with farm teams whose generic goal is “player development within a winning environment”. Sometimes those goals are at cross-purposes, and all coaches like to win. That said, Chaulk had a hand in developing no feewer than 10 players in Bako who played for the Oilers in 2023-24.

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A little surprising to see the departure of longtime goaltending consultant Sylvain Rodrigue, who has been connected with the organization for a decade including the last six seasons in Bakersfield. Among his protégés is Stuart Skinner who successfully made the jump to the NHL and is now the Oilers undisputed #1. Another student is his own son Olivier Rodrigue who has made steady progress during his four seasons at the pro level and will join the battle to be Skinner’s backup in 2024-25. No word on where the senior Rodrigue may wind up, other than the ever-vague “pursue other opportunities”.