Friends Splitting?: Draisaitl Candid About Tying His Future to McDavid’s

One of the reasons fans remain confident that Connor McDavid will re-sign a contract with the Edmonton Oilers is that McDavid would have to leave his best friend, Leon Draisaitl, if he chose to go elsewhere. Draisaitl is locked in for eight years with the Oilers, and many analysts were under the impression he only did so because he knew McDavid was staying.

That may not have been the case.

#Oilers
Draisaitl on his friendship with connor and the contract pic.twitter.com/0rPFDIrU9Q

— JESSE (The?Drop) (@97OrangeCrush29) September 17, 2025

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He was asked about tying his contract to McDavid’s when he sat down for an interview with 32 Thoughts. Elliotte Friedman asked if everyone was wrong to assume that Leon signed because he had talked about it with Connor and knew McDavid was right behind him.

“I don’t know if you’re wrong to think that,” he said, “Again, maybe they’re just not in as much of a rush, right like maybe there’s just, maybe Connor doesn’t care about people… There’s always this this thought about like, ‘Oh he doesn’t want to interrupt anything, like he doesn’t want to drag this into the season… Like, but what’s he interrupting? He’s not interrupting anything.”

Draisaitl said the two sides are just “negotiating whatever they’re negotiating.”

Draisaitl Still Confident McDavid Will Sign

Draisaitl isn’t worried he locked himself into a deal with the Oilers and is now finding out that maybe his best friend is going to leave. “So yeah, I’m still obviously very confident.” He said he doesn’t talk to him all the time about his deal and how things are going. It’s not like I’m texting him, ‘Hey, where you at? Like what’s going on?’ It’s not like that.. He added, “I give him a space, I give them their time.”

He said that he’ll be very very happy when the McDavid deal does finally get done, which Draisaitl assumes will be sooner rather than later.

Next: “No Guarantees”: Hyman with Update Ahead of Oilers Training Camp”