Edmonton Oilers Extending Cam Talbot's Contract Is A Mistake

It seems that general manager Peter Chiarelli hasn’t learned his lesson after the mistakes he made while being the general manager for the Boston Bruins. The Edmonton Oilers have extended goalie Cam Talbot‘s contract for three years with an annual cap hit of $4.17 million.

With this contract, Talbot now has a no-movement clause for the first two years and a no-trade clause in the third year. What this means is that for the first two years of the extended contract Talbot cannot be sent down to the minors. In the third year, if Edmonton wants to trade Talbot he can only be traded to a set number of teams that he has chosen. This alone makes the contract terrible.

Chiarelli put these clauses, both no-movement and no-trade, into many of the contracts he negotiated while being Boston’s general manager. It may not seem like an issue now, but if Talbot doesn’t play up to the standard that’s expected with a contract of this size, then Edmonton is essentially stuck with him until his contract ends.

In 26 games this season, Talbot has a 2.58 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage, which puts him in a mediocre group for both of those statistics. To be fair to Talbot, he has played better in his last 10 starts and he is playing for one of the worst teams in the NHL.

If Talbot can continue to play well, then this contract won’t be bad in regards to the cap hit and length of the contract.