{"id":42837,"date":"2025-07-06T07:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T07:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/42837\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T07:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T07:46:08","slug":"maple-leafs-linked-to-connor-mcdavid-in-historic-120-million-contract-pursuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/42837\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs linked to Connor McDavid in historic $120 million contract pursuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At this point, it seems like the most likely outcome for Connor McDavid at the end of the 2025 NHL season is to sign an eight-year, $120 million contract to return to the Edmonton Oilers.<\/p>\n<p>But what if he doesn\u2019t?<\/p>\n<p>If McDavid decides to leave Edmonton, the NHL world will stand still until he decides his destination.<\/p>\n<p>The greatest player of his generation hasn\u2019t really considered a departure up to this point. But this is the last season on his current contract upcoming, and an extension hasn\u2019t been reached yet.<\/p>\n<p>McDavid will set the NHL\u2019s new annual average value contract record no matter who he signs with.<\/p>\n<p>And <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/25209034-7-way-too-early-free-agency-landing-spots-connor-mcdavid\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bleacher Report<\/a> pitches the Toronto Maple Leafs as a possible new home.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the B\/R logic:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Maple Leafs already have their own superstar and No. 1 center in Auston Matthews. But if McDavid ever does become available, Toronto would have to find a way to get involved in the bidding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter all, how often would Canada&#8217;s biggest hockey market have a chance to acquire Canada&#8217;s best player? Especially one that was born in the Greater Toronto Area?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd if the Maple Leafs keep fizzling out in the playoffs, they&#8217;ll be under even more pressure to keep making dramatic changes to fix that.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey could have a dominant 1-2 punch of McDavid and Matthews down the middle, or they could do something bold by trading Matthews for a haul and replacing him with McDavid at the top. That wouldn&#8217;t be a very NHL-type of thing for a team to do, but McDavid hitting free agency would likely change plenty of teams&#8217; approach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORE:\u00a0<\/strong><a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nhl\/news\/red-wings-forward-announces-shock-nhl-retirement-age-28\/fd7c384657cac233287fc9e6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Red Wings forward announces shock NHL retirement at age 28<\/a><\/p>\n<p>McDavid and Matthews.<\/p>\n<p>Goodness gracious.<\/p>\n<p>That might break the NHL.<\/p>\n<p>Could you imagine?<\/p>\n<p>Who knows what will happen, but know this: The longer McDavid goes without signing some sort of Oilers deal, the more rampant the speculation will become.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORE NHL NEWS:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this point, it seems like the most likely outcome for Connor McDavid at the end of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-42837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114805183981409778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}