A couple of days ago Raphael Lavoie accepted the Oilers qualifying offer. That is an interesting situation that will actually greatly effect the team going into the regular season.

For those who don't understand the process, allow me to elaborate. A few weeks ago the Oilers issued qualifying offers to a number of their RFA's. It is a way of maintaining the rights of the player as the two sides continue to negotiate and prevents them from becoming UFA's. There are additional elements but qualifying offers are essentially a 10% increase of what the player was making the prior season.

A player like Bouchard for example made just over $800,000 last season so they will obviously not accept their qualifying offer as they should be earning millions. Make sense? Cool.

The potential issue with Lavoie is that people were expecting him to not take the qualifying offer and instead take a lower number, likely at 700,000. While it would be less money in his own pocket it would help the team out with their cap situation and make it more likely they could keep him on the roster.

Lavoie is betting on himself here that he can come into training camp and be one of the top 12 forwards on this team and beat out some other players for a spot. It's a big risk on his part as if he is only okay than there are players who make less that the team will put on the roster instead. Honestly, I like the boldness on his part and the swagger that he thinks he deserves a spot right now.

Edmonton needs more scoring forwards that can jump into the top six or top nine. If Lavoie can show he is that player than it's one more strong depth piece to add to this existing good team.

Thanks for reading

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