The NHL may be on a two-week break for the 4 Nations Face Off, but GM Patrik Allvin and Co. of the Vancouver Canucks are not. They announced a two-year extension for the recently-acquired Drew O’Connor, starting as of next season with an AAV of $2.5 million with a 12-team no-trade clause.

Reactions to the signing have been mixed.

Most folks like what they’ve seen from O’Connor thus far. He’s provided a lot of spark and jump since arriving from Pittsburgh, and seems to fit in well on a line with Filip Chytil and Brock Boeser. Few, if any, have issues with the general idea of extending him, even this early on in his Vancouver tenure.

It’s the price that has many unsure about this. Welcome to the sticker shock that is going to define the upcoming NHL offseason.

O’Connor’s $2.5 million AAV, as of right now, has him slated to be (tied for) the 187^th-highest paid forward in the league for the 2025/26 season. His 22 points on the 2024/25 season, however, have him ranked in a tie for 244^th overall in forward scoring. By that very simple measure, this reads as an overpayment.

The contract is also, as many have pointed out, virtually identical to the one the Canucks handed to UFA Danton Heinen this past summer. Heinen was signed for two years at an AAV of $2.25 million, and also received a 12-team no-trade clause.

Heinen, for what it’s worth, has 19 points on the season in two fewer games than O’Connor. He was also just included as either a throw-in or a slight cap dump in the trade that returned both O’Connor and Marcus Pettersson to Vancouver.

It’s not hard to see why many are not receiving the O’Connor extension well in light of this precedent. The Canucks just got rid of a similar contract, and seemed happy to do so, only to turn around and sign a slightly less productive forward to slightly more expensive deal?

Obviously, there is more going on here than just raw point totals. For one, O’Connor certainly appears to be a more complete and impactful player than Heinen. That much is apparent even four games into O’Connor’s Canuck career. He holds significant advantages over Heinen in size, speed, and drive. He also looks to hold at least some untapped offensive potential.

Heinen is also 29 and will be 30 before next season begins. O’Connor, on the other hand, is 26 going on 27, and this contract will cover him until 28. Those are prime years for most NHLers.

That serves to explain why fans should be, at the very least, happier to have O’Connor on the books than Heinen. But most NHL contracts are not judged by the “Danton Heinen Metric.” O’Connor’s $2.5 million still smacks as a little excessive for a player who’s career high is 17 goals.

But don’t worry…we’ve got a feeling that all price-related apprehensions are going to wear off over the next couple of months. The O’Connor signing can be seen as a preview of the sticker shock that is inevitably coming to the NHL this summer as the cap ceiling jumps from $88 million to $95.5 million.

That $7.5 million increase is an 8.5% jump, and that means we can expect a similar jump in contract values. Then there’s another $8.5 million bump the summer after, and a $9.5 million increase coming after that.  By that point, the cap will be a full 29% higher than it is right now. So, over the course of the next few summers, we can expect NHL salaries to climb by nearly a third of their current value.

If we can go back to the Heinen measuring stick, and apply that upcoming 8.5% increase to his $2.25 million salary signed last summer, and we get $2.44 million. So, in other words, what O’Connor just signed for is basically what Heinen signed for a few months ago, just with league inflation applied to it.

And, remember, that inflation is about to hit across the board. The average NHL salary right now is somewhere between $3.5 million and $4 million, with the median being between $2.5 million and $3 million. Already, O’Connor falls below those marks. But just wait.

Some 100 NHL forwards who played games this season are set to be UFAs this summer. Some 56 more are set to be RFAs. That’s a large percentage of NHLers who will be negotiating new contracts with all that extra cap space available. And that’s just this upcoming summer, never mind the next two.

Expect the average NHL salary to immediately skyrocket as of July. Expect the minimum NHL salary to crack $1 million, if not now, then soon. Expect a lot more sticker shocker. And expect any negative feelings regarding the O’Connor extension to wear off over time.

We’re pretty certain that, by the time he actually plays his first game under this new contract, O’Connor’s salary will barely raise an eyebrow. It will be perfectly in line with the new era of the exploding cap.

Look, this isn’t quite the Marcus Pettersson extension. It’s becoming increasing clear that Pettersson and his camp negotiated under the auspices of the old NHL economy, and ended up with a contract that will increasingly look like an outright bargain in the years to come.

This is more of an ‘in-between’ thing. In signing O’Connor to an extension now, Allvin and Co. have risked a mildly negative reaction, in that the cap increase and its subsequent inflation have not occurred yet.

But we still think this was a wise move. An attempt to get ahead of the market. Any perceived extra value placed on O’Connor’s contract here is about to be overshadowed by the whopping amounts of extra value applied to each and every new contract from here on out.

Some apprehensions about this salary are fair, especially as an initial reaction. But if you felt that way upon learning of this signing, check back in at the end of the summer. We’ve got a feeling any shock will have worn off by then.

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