Each NHL team’s worst contract heading into the 2019-20 season

Arizona Coyotes – Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Contract: $8.25 million cap hit over eight years; no-movement clause all eight seasons

This might seem like an odd pick, but remember, the Arizona Coyotes are a funny team. Only 14 players are signed past the 2019-20 season. And only six are signed past the 2020-21 season. Most of their long-term deals are at worst decent values. OEL’s deal stood out to me as the worst one.

Ekman-Larsson is a perfectly capable defenseman. He’s at worst a top-four defenseman and his deployment is sub-optimal for a defenseman with his skill set. But still, if you’re getting paid $8.25 million a year (the fourth-highest cap hit among all defensemen), you’ve got to be a top pairing caliber defenseman. OEL’s results suggest he falls short of that high bar.

It probably has more to do with his lack of quality teammates than anything else. Having success is hard when the guys around you aren’t good. And OEL’s deal is one I’ll always defend. The Coyotes had to re-sign him. Losing OEL would have been disastrous. That said, Ekman-Larsson has to be better if the Yotes want to take a big step forward and get close to making the postseason.

Dishonorable mentions: Only having seven points in 20 games the year before his long-term deal begins certainly isn’t good for Christian Dvorak.