Raphael Lavoie accepts qualifying offer, earns five percent raise on one-year deal

Edmonton Oilers prospect Raphael Lavoie has signed a one-year, two-way contract worth $874,125 in the NHL and $70,000 in the AHL.

This contract comes by way of Lavoie accepting the qualifying offer that the Oilers made when his entry-level contract expired earlier this off-season. Lavoie was a restricted free agent this summer and will be again when his contract expires following the 2023-24 season.

The qualifying offer is calculated from the base NHL salary a player earned the previous season. If a player’s salary was $660,000 or less than $1,000,000, their qualifying offer would net them a five percent raise. In Lavoie’s case, his base NHL salary in 2022-23 was $832,500, so accepting the qualifying offer bumps him up five percent to $874,125.

Also, since Lavoie hasn’t yet played in the NHL, his qualifying offer wasn’t eligible to be a one-way contract. A qualifying offer becomes a one-way contract if a player has played 180 NHL games over the previous three seasons or the player was claimed off of waivers the previous season.

The Oilers selected Lavoie in the second round of the 2019 draft from the Halifax Mooseheads of the QMJHL. He scored 45 points over 51 games for Vasby in Sweden’s second league during the pandemic and returned to North America and scored 10 points in 19 games for the Bakersfield Condors in his AHL debut.

After a disappointing 2021-22 season in which he scored 13 goals and 26 points for the Condors over 56 games, Lavoie broke out in his third professional campaign. He led the Condors with 25 goals and finished second on the team with 60 points.

That performance has put Lavoie in a position where he’ll receive plenty of consideration for an NHL gig this fall. He’s a 6’4″ winger with strong skating ability and a great shot and would be an inexpensive option to give the Oilers some skilled depth on the right side of their forward group.

Lavoie is waiver-eligible on this contract, so he would either have to crack the Oilers out of training camp or the team would risk losing him for nothing.