Remember when Kevin Lowe gave offer sheets to Thomas Vanek and Dustin Penner? Good times.
Exactly one week passed, the Edmonton Oilers elected not to match the offer sheets signed by Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway. They will now spend their next two seasons with the St. Louis Blues. Broberg will make $4.58M per year, and Holloway will make $2.29M per year. Ken Holland has been out of a GM job since the Stanley Cup Finals. While so much about his Oilers tenure can be subjective, this news stirs up another debate about the last five years.
There now isn’t one single first round pick from 2019-2023 still part of an organization that has the oldest roster in the NHL. When I released my recap of Holland’s tenure last month, I made note that these two needed to start taking more strides after this past regular season and playoffs. It took them a while to finally get it going. I’m sure those strides will happen with their new team; I just didn’t want them doing it for that much money. There had been talks that Broberg was feeling more keen to move on due to not getting enough playing time earlier. Part of me thought Rounds 3 and 4 changed his mind a little, but that wasn’t the case. Dylan Holloway was usually stapled to the bottom six, but started shining when playing on Leon Draisaitl’s wing during the playoffs. Unless Beau Akey and Raphael Lavoie can develop into full-time NHLers and be full-time Oilers, Holland’s drafting record with Edmonton has just been fatally shot.
It’s been confirmed in hockey media that Blues GM Doug Armstrong wouldn’t have presented the offer sheets if Holland were still in Edmonton, as they are good friends. Of course, Ken may’ve viewed his top two prospects as untouchable. But what’s funny now is Broberg and Holloway reportedly being the asking price when Pavel Buchnevich was a trade target. Now we lose them for second and third round picks. It’s been reported that the Oilers tried extending them both for cheaper earlier in the season. But it’s clear that they instead wanted to cash out at a young age. That may not have bolded well for veterans who took less to sign or re-sign, should the youngsters have stayed. Extensions to Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard, and Connor McDavid would also be made more problematic. A trade between the Oilers and Blues was announced shortly after. Prospect defenseman Paul Fischer, who St. Louis drafted in the 5th round last summer. Is he supposed to be the left-handed Broberg replacement?
After the Cody Ceci trade, along with Evander Kane eventually being put on LTIR, the Oilers will now have $6.07M in cap space. If they were to send someone down to Bakersfield and go 11/7, that cap space would go to $7M. Most Oilers fans are probably fine with letting Holloway go since Edmonton already has enough forwards. Vasily Podkolzin, a forward prospect they got in a trade with Vancouver on the weekend, could take his spot in a projected bottom six role. But like other people, I assumed trading Ceci meant they wanted to match Broberg. If this means that the newly acquired Ty Emberson will be the #4 defenseman, while Troy Stecher and Josh Brown are the #6 and #7, this group of 6 looks slightly worse than the one they ended the season with.
The cap relief they now have gives the Oilers a chance to perhaps pursue a top 4 right-handed defenseman at the 2025 Trade Deadline. Whether or not they do that is the topic of a future article. The moral of the story is that it doesn’t take too long to extend your Restricted Free Agents.
