What is the fantasy hockey impact of the contract extensions signed by Brossoit and Davidson to stay in Edmonton?

This year’s trade deadline has come and gone and we are now in the home stretch for this NHL season.  All in all, it was a fairly quiet deadline day, especially for the Oilers as far as the trades were concerned but that didn’t stop them from still making some key transactions.

On Monday, the Edmonton Oilers managed to lockup two key future assets in Brandon Davidson and Laurent Brossoit to new contract extensions. One has already been contributing to the Oilers this season and one is soon going to be.

In this weeks Capped, we take a look at the deals signed by Davidson and Brossoit and see where they fit in with the Oilers going forward.

Brandon Davidson – Defense

The Oilers re-signed Davidson to a new two-year contract with an annual cap hit of $1.425 million dollars. He was scheduled to become a restricted free agent at the end of this season.

So far this season, Davidson has been solid in what one would call a shoddy defense for the Oilers. Considering how bad Edmonton’s record has been this year, the fact Davidson is still has a plus-rating (+7) is nothing short of impressive. In 48 games this season, he has four goals, six assists for a total of 10 points while averaging over 19 minutes per game.

The 24-year-old is turning out to be a steal as a sixth round pick for the Oilers back in the 2010 NHL entry draft. That’s rarely seen from the Oilers, who have had less than stellar success when it comes to finding NHL players with any of their later rounds in the draft. Not only has he battle for his professional success, he has faced his own personal adversity on his rise to the NHL as well. Back in 2011, the Oilers announced that he would be sidelined indefinitely as he battled testicular cancer. After undergoing a 21-day cycle of chemotherapy, he came out on top to fight another day and was able to continue his career and progress towards his NHL dream.

Davidson has managed to impress the Oilers at every level, leaping other quality prospects in the process. Guys like the recently traded Martin Gernat, Dillon Simpson, David Musil and has even managed to keep Griffin Reinhart out of the lineup and in the minors. He plays a tough, smart, game and moves the puck well.

Other than Andrej Sekera, Davidson has been the Oilers best defenceman this season. He doesn’t get a lot of power play time but yet still has two power-play goals; not too shabby! He’s normally paired up with Oilers tough-guy Eric Gryba, but with Gryba out with an injury, he was paired with recent acquisition Adam Pardy in the most recent game.

Going forward, it would appear that Davidson is engraving his place in the top six at the very least, if not becoming a top four defenseman for the Oilers. He’s still technically a rookie so there’s always the chance he can get better. If there’s one thing we’ve seen from Davidson, never sell him short.

 Laurent Brossoit – Goaltender

*Note – numbers above are this seasons AHL numbers

On Monday, the Oilers also locked up goalie Laurent Brossoit to a new two-year deal that sees him getting a raise up to $750,000 per year. The biggest thing with this new deal is the fact that it’s a one-way deal for Brossoit. He was scheduled to become a restricted free agent at the end of this season and still has one more season of waiver exemption available to the Oilers.

The 22-year-old goalie was originally drafted by the Calgary Flames in the sixth round of the 2011 NHL entry draft and came to the Oilers in a trade, along with Romak Horak, for Ladislav Smid and Olivier Roy in late 2013.  At the time, the deal seemed a little lopsided in the Flames favor. Smid was logging heavy minutes in a shutdown role for the Oilers and signed to a somewhat favorable long-term contract, even though he struggled with health issues during his career. Today, Smid is still with the Flames and still struggling to stay healthy and Brossoit has turned into one of the better prospect goalies around, showing steady improvement at every level he has played. In case you were wondering about the other two pieces in the deal; Olivier Roy is currently playing in Austria and Roman Horak is playing in the KHL.

With the recent trade of Anders Nilsson, the backup role is now currently owned by Brossoit for the time being. There’s nothing to say that he is locked into that role as he does still have waiver exemptions but it’s an opportunity for Brossoit to show the Oilers he can play at the NHL level, at least until the end of this season. The current starter, Cam Talbot, also just re-signed with the Oilers for three more years so there’s no rush on Brossoit to be anything more than a supporting cast member, but don’t think for one second the Oilers wouldn’t love to have a goalie controversy on their hands with these two net-minders for a few years.

So far in Brossoit’s young NHL career, he has started two games and is still looking for his first NHL win (0-1-1). That being said, in those two games he’s played very well, giving up a total of three goals; stopping 81 of 84 shots. There’s little doubt he will get a few more opportunities in the coming games to earn that first victory and hopefully cement his spot going forward as Talbots backup at the very least. He’s still considered the Oilers starter of the future and this little tryout for him will go a long way to ensure he’s ready when that time comes. 

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That’s all for this week folks.  As always, thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment.