The NHL's worst contracts are out and they spell trouble for several teams

The more revealing story sits lower.

The Calgary Flames winger carries a $10.5 million cap hit with a projected surplus value of minus-$32 million. That is a sunk cost on a rebuilding roster, painful but easy to explain.

Harder to explain is why the Edmonton Oilers, a team with the best player alive, have two names on the same ten-contract list.

Trent Frederic sits sixth and Jake Walman seventh, and neither is a star deal gone wrong.

Frederic signed eight years at $3.85 million; Walman signed seven years at $7 million. Walman had never before signed anything longer than three seasons.

That is the tell. Edmonton spends to the ceiling on Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, so it has no cash left to reward role players.

Instead it hands out term. Term is exactly where value collapses, because you are buying a depth player's decline seasons at today's price.

Luszczyszyn's model gives Frederic a five percent chance of ever returning positive value, and Walman thirteen percent.

Read the list closely and it splits in two. Huberdeau, Vancouver's Elias Pettersson and Anaheim's Leo Carlsson are bets on star production that hasn't arrived.

Vegas goalie Adin Hill, on six years at $6.25 million after one championship run, and the two Oilers are something else entirely.

They are the cost of building depth without cap space.

The Canucks and Flames overpaid for ceiling. Edmonton overpaid for time.

That distinction matters for every contender chasing a window.

The lesson is not to avoid stars. It is to never solve a depth problem with length.

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