It is August 28 and we are just weeks away from the 2025-26 NHL season starting and the best hockey player on the planet not signed to a contract for the following year. Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers have not come to an agreement on a contract extension that will keep him with the Canadian hockey club and now the 31 other fanbases are trying to figure out what their favorite team will need to do to get him to put pen to paper.
Those mental gymnastics were only accelerated when McDavid held a microphone at Team Canada’s Olympic orientation camp and specifically mentioned that he’s going to take the contract negotiation with the Oilers very slowly.
“I said at the end of June, that I have every intention to take my time with it, and I still feel the same way,” McDavid said about extension talks. “I’ll take my time and go through everything. I have every intention to win in Edmonton – that’s my only focus, and maybe next would be to win a gold medal with Canada.
“That is my intention, to win there. Take my time to go through it with my family, my agent, everybody involved. So, we’re going through it slowly.”
The 28-year-old center was then asked whether or not it’s his preference to go into the season with or without a contract extension done.
“All options are on the table. Like I said, we’re going through it. I don’t have a preference either way – I want the group to be as dialed in and ready to roll on Day 1 and we don’t need any distractions.”
Sure, there is still over 10 months until McDavid would actually hit free agency and be potentially the greatest ever player to hit the open market in the modern era. But, what if he did? And, what if he chose to sign with the Philadelphia Flyers, who just so happen to have over $40 million in projected cap space for next summer?
Let’s walk in this fantasy world. Allow us to dream of this situation that probably has less than one percent chance of happening.
And of course when a new player comes into the fold, it’s only natural for us to immediately think of the potential line combinations that would happen. So, what wingers could McDavid play with in Philadelphia and how could their chemistry potentially work together?
Travis Konecny
Travis Konecny is the very first player that came to mind. He’s used to playing with high-level thinkers already, considering his chemistry with Sean Couturier, but just turn the pace of the game up by a couple million markers and that would be his experience with McDavid. The hope would be that he can handle that speed.
If he can, Konecny could find a similar level of success as Zach Hyman has next to McDavid. The Flyers winger might not be as details-oriented as the current Oiler, but as someone that can read the play happening, get to the dirty areas of the ice and produce from there; that’s Konecny.
Porter Martone
We’re dreaming a little bit even more — since this would mean Porter Martone making the team next year and being given a sizeable role almost immediately — but take everything that we mentioned about how successful Hyman was next to McDavid and put roughly 100 more points of hockey IQ in the winger and you can get Martone.
Possibly even more physical, to clear out the space for McDavid, and be one of the best netfront players in the entire league; it’s not even that far-fetched to think that this duo would tear apart the NHL limb-from-limb. Sorry Victor Hedman, your head has been turned around from being turnstiled so hard that you have nerve damage in your neck. Sorry, Cale Makar, you have permanent dizziness and can’t skate in a straight line because of Martone and McDavid flying around you so fast. Zach Werenski, your knees are now made of the kind of ground meat that comes in a three-foot long tube. Good luck.
Tyson Foerster
While someone like Owen Tippett might be able to keep up with McDavid in a straight-line skating exercise, from what we have seen of the red-haired winger so far, his hockey brain would lag behind. So, while Tyson Foerster is not some cerebral winger, he is someone that will work supremely hard to keep possession of the puck and give it to his centerman whenever possible.
Plus, that shot. Man, the power behind some of Foerster’s goals is palpable. You can smell the burnt rubber from puck hitting the twine up in the stands. While his overall skill might be a step behind the likes of Konecny and Martone, there is an argument to be made that Foerster would be the perfect complementary piece to get the most out of whatever line McDavid is on.
Now, some of you might be saying: “Wait, isn’t there some Russian dude who might end up being one of the best Flyers ever, left off of this list?” Well, yeah. But considering that Matvei Michkov is such a high-level thinker, and might even rival McDavid in that category — or at least be one of the few players in the NHL capable of reading the game as fast as the current Oilers captain — when it comes down to 5-on-5 play, it would make all the sense in the world to keep those two apart. On the power play? Yeah, Michkov and McDavid would run the world together. But at evens, it would probably be best to, for the majority of the time, keep them on separate lines.
Well, that was fun. It’s nice to live in a fantasy world for a few minutes.