The Edmonton Oilers have made it official: Trent Frederic has been signed to an eight-year contract worth $30.8M. This would break down to be a $3.85M cap hit per season.
FREDDY‼️
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) June 27, 2025
The #Oilers have signed forward Trent Frederic to an eight-year contract extension with an average annual value of $$3.85M.#LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/HO1afzlRsR
Per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, here’s how the contract breaks down:
Frederic’s 8-year, $30.8M deal ($3.85M AAV) includes a full NMC in the first 4 years, a 10-team trade list in years 5-6, and a 20-team trade list years 7-8. It is broken down as:
— David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) June 27, 2025
Year 1 – $2.55M + $1.5M SB
Year 2 – $2.55M+ $1.5M
Year 3 – $2.55M+ $1.5M
Year 4 – $2.35M+ $1.5M
Year…
Where does this leave the Oilers heading into the draft?
With Frederic locked up, the Edmonton Oilers have $13,350,834 in projected cap space remaining (19-man roster, with European free agent David Tomasek on the team and Max Jones in Bakersfield). Most of the remaining money will be eaten up by Evan Bouchard, leaving only a little bit of wiggle room to sign a couple of bottom-6 players.
Thankfully, it appears that the Oilers may not be done moving out some cap space — Viktor Arvidsson’s name has been floating around as someone likely on the trade block. If they can move his entire cap hit, that would give Stan Bowman and co. another $4M to spend on addressing deficiencies in either the top-6 or in net. Here’s what the roster looks like if Arvidsson is shipped out as well:
And here’s the corresponding cap breakdown.
A cap crunch, but the Oilers could be in a far worse position.
That said, with the 2025 NHL Draft mere hours away, it should be an interesting day in Oil Country and across the league. Let’s hope Bowman has a couple of sneaky good moves up his sleeve to bolster this lineup for another deep run.
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