Lucic contract prevented Oilers from signing Demers in 2016
Ex-NHL defenceman Jason Demers had a brief stint with the Edmonton Oilers last season, but did you know he could have been on the team six years prior?
In the summer of 2016, Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli was busy. He had just come off a franchise-altering trade that sent Taylor Hall to the New Jersey Devils and was looking to help get the team back into the playoffs for the first time in a decade.
One of the holes he wanted to fill was on defence, specifically on the right side. Demers, who was coming off a 23-point season with the Dallas Stars, was one of his top targets.
The now-mostly-retired NHL defender appeared on OilersNation Everyday earlier this week to give fans a peek behind the curtain and explain why he ultimately did not sign with the team.
“I really wanted to sign with Edmonton,” Demers started. “I talked with Todd [McLellan] the day before, and he was like, ‘Hey, we really need a right-handed defenceman,’ so I was super excited.”
Remember when the Oilers almost signed Jason Demers in 2016?! Well, the Lucic deal kinda got in the way of that 😂
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With interest being mutual between Demers and the Oilers, the two met up for a dinner to discuss terms. Also present at that dinner was Milan Lucic, another target that Chiarelli was trying to bring to Edmonton.
As supper progressed, Demers noted that both Chiarelli and Lucic kept leaving the table to have sidebar conversations. This is when it became clear that a deal was not going to be struck with Demers.
“I’m talking to my dad and I’m like ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, they must be negotiating,'” explained Demers. “They’re going back and forth. I think it was the third or fourth course, and the money was at like five or six million, and I turned to my dad, and I’m like, ‘Doesn’t look like we’re going to Edmonton.'”
That suspicion turned out to be right, as the Oilers eventually signed Lucic to a seven-year contract with a $6 million cap hit. Demers would eventually sign a five-year deal with the Florida Panthers, carrying a $4.5 million cap hit.
Though a deal couldn’t be worked out, Chiarelli still drove Demers back to his hotel and apologized.
“Chiarelli drove us back to the hotel and was pretty much like, ‘You kind of heard, sorry,'” said Demers. “So I walked into the hotel room with my dad and was like, ‘Well, at least we got a free dinner.'”
That Oilers contract would eventually come to fruition for Demers in 2022, when he signed a cheap one-year deal worth $750,000. He spent the majority of that contract in the AHL with the Bakersfield Condors but did appear in one NHL game, the 700th of his career.
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