Draisaitl plays it cool, maybe too cool, on future with Oilers

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Leon Draisaitl wouldn’t give the million dollar answer.

Or the $14.5 million answer.

Or any answer at all.

Asked at the Edmonton Oilers exit interviews Wednesday about his future with the team beyond the last year of his current contract, Draisaitl wasn’t committing to anything.

He is eligible for unrestricted free agency at the end of next season, meaning he might very well be playing out his last few months as an Oiler.

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Or not.

He’s not saying.

The answer all of Edmonton was hoping for Wednesday was something along the lines of ‘I love it here, this is where I want to finish my career. I hope to get an extension done very soon. I can’t think of playing anywhere else.’

But it’s no surprise we didn’t get it. The first rule of negotiating is not to tell the other side you’re totally willing to take the home town discount. From a business perspective, it’s always wise to play it cool.

But did he play it a little TOO cool? Draisaitl’s answers to repeated questions on the matter gave no indication, really, that it is Edmonton or bust. There was no real sense that his decision is going to be based on anything other than business and what’s best for him in the future.

Fans were hoping for a little more than “I’m undecided,” but that’s what they got.

That’s his right, of course. He’s earned it after 10 loyal seasons, during most of which he’s been considerably underpaid at $8.5 million a season, but it certainly doesn’t put the minds of the fans at ease.

“I’m going to sit down with my agents and talk to the Oilers and see what their plan is, see what our plan is and just go from there,” he said in response to the first question.

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Does he have a timeline? Would he be willing to let this play out deep into next season?

“I don’t have an answer to that,” he said. “I haven’t had any time to think about it. It wasn’t on my mind a lot lately. It’s going to take little bit of time to figure out what I want, what the Oilers want, what everyone wants and go from there and figure something out.”

Is Edmonton top of the list and it would take something extraordinary to lure him away?

“Edmonton has the only chance to sign me (until next July or he’s traded), so I guess they are first, but we’ll see. I’ll leave it at that. I love being an Oiler more than anything. So I’ll leave it at that.”

Question 4: The Oilers are close to a Cup, they have the money, they have Connor McDavid. People can’t think of a reason why he wouldn’t sign here. Can he?

“I guess not if you phrase it that way,” laughed Draisaitl. “But, again, it’s going to take a little bit of time to figure out an answer on what we want to do.

“I’m well aware of what’s going but I haven’t spent much time thinking about what really are the facts and what I want to do. So we’ll leave it at that and figure it out when we get there.”

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So there you have it. The million dollar answer never came. But one of the things we’ve always admired about Draisaitl is his honesty and that’s what we got on Wednesday.

He’s not going to fill our notebooks with rose petals about staying in Edmonton because its too early in the process to know what he’s going to do.

That’s fair. It’s a major life decision with a lot of moving parts and all of the information isn’t even on the table yet. Empty platitudes are meaningless right now.

“Ultimately it’s up to him and his team around him,” said McDavid, who will be crossing this same bridge a year from now when his own deal heads into its final season. “But I love playing with him, being on the ice with him.”

One thing is for certain, however this thing ends up, Draisaitl says this season was the best he’s ever had. On that subject, he didn’t hold back.

“It was a special run,” he said. “Any time you can get pretty much a full country behind you it’s special. It’s a lot of fun being in those games. The stakes don’t get much bigger than what we were playing for.

“To me, there is no stage that’s too big for us now. We’ve played in the biggest game of hockey that you can play in, there is no bigger game than NHL Stanley Cup Final Game 7 and we were one shot away.

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“It’s disappointing, frustrating. You can’t really be much closer than what we were. If you’re that close it stings a little extra. We accomplished a lot this year.

“We’re playing to win so there’s only one team that’s happy right now, but I’m very proud of what we’ve been through this year and how we had a whole country rooting for us.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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