The Edmonton Oilers and their fans woke up to some pretty shocking news Tuesday morning: the St. Louis Blues signed forward Dylan Holloway and defenceman Philip Broberg to offer sheets. The Oilers now have seven days to match those contracts, or else will receive just a third-round pick for Holloway and a second rounder for Broberg.
This was one of the fears Oilers fans had with the Oilers cap situation: that bloated contracts could result in losing good young talent. And as a wise alien once said “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
So, how can the Oilers extract their revenge to make the Blues suffer for this? Here are some of ideas.
Revenge of the offer sheet
Unfortunately, the Blues don’t have any outstanding RFAs of note this year (unless for some reason you think Nikita Alexandrov or Mikhail Abramov would be worth an offer sheet). But next year, goaltender Joel Hofer, defencemen Scott Perunovich and Pierre-Olivier Joseph, and forwards Alexei Toropchenko and Jake Neighbours are all RFAs.
As it stands now, the Blues have just over $15M in cap space next season, with eight players to sign (including the above five).
But, if Broberg and Holloway do end up there, they are now at around $8M with six players to sign.
Out of the above, Hofer, Perunovich and Neighbours are probably the only ones of any interest and value that could cause the Blues some consternation (although still not probably to the extent that they have caused the Oilers).
The Oilers currently have $25M for nine players to sign next year, although that includes Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard who could conceivably take up almost of all that. Not a great start for an offer sheet.
The other thing in addition to cap space is draft picks—a team has to have their own draft picks to send as compensation.
For the 2026 draft (the one that would be used for players signed next offseason) the Oilers have all their picks except their fourth-round pick. Luckily, absolutely none of the compensation for an offer sheet includes a fourth-round pick, so from that perspective the Oilers could do it.
It would be unlikely that the Blues would leave Neighbours unsigned, seeing as he scored 27 goals last year. One would think he would be top priority for them, and also that signing him to an offer sheet would get matched anyway.
But perhaps that could be the point. Why not try and sign him to a bloated contract that they would still match, a la Shea Weber? Depending on how much you think they value him, you could put in an offer sheet for anywhere from ~6.87M to ~$9.16M where the compensation would be either a first and a third or a first, second and third. But if you are the Oilers, this would be quite the risk if St. Louis didn’t match, given their own cap issues and extensions.
Perhaps see if you can get Hofer to sign at the same figure as Broberg, meaning that St. Louis would only get a second for him as well. Granted, with Bennington still signed maybe they wouldn’t care as much about losing him for lesser value, and again the Oilers could be shooting themselves in the foot (unless Skinner takes a step back).
Perunovich might be the one that makes the most sense, especially with Broberg gone. He is a former Hobey Baker winner and put up 17 assists in 54 games last year (six in 19 games the year prior). He led the Blues defence last year in Corsi, Fenwick, and On-Ice Goals %. His university and AHL stats show that he has good offensive talent. Defensively, he also had the lowest on-ice goals against per 60 minutes, shot attempts per 60 minutes and had the highest on ice goal differential on the team.
With the Blues already having the above noted cap issues plus three defencemen at $6.5M and a fourth at $4M, how much money is left for him? In fact, this almost seems to play out like Broberg is playing out this year.
In any event, this is the easiest/most straightforward way to get revenge, although it didn’t quite work our for the Carolina Hurricanes and Jesper Kotkaniemi, so maybe it isn’t the best avenue.
Potentially prevent playoffs
The Oilers and Blues play each other three times this year, meaning the Oilers have the ability to wrestle away six points from the Blues.
The last meeting takes place on April 9. That is the Blues third last game and is a week before the end of the regular season. That could certainly be a big game for their playoff push, and what would be sweeter revenge than putting in one of, if not the, final nails in the coffin?
(Also, the only game in St. Louis between the two is also “Heart Health Night” to celebrate heart health. Seems a bit hypocritical when you just hurt Oilers fans’ hearts, isn’t it?)
The Oilers could also lose games to other Central Division opponents to make things harder for the Blues as well, but that seems a tad counterproductive.
McDavid refuses to play for Team Canada in 2026
Ok hear me out here first.
Blues GM Doug Armstrong is the GM for Team Canada for the 2026 Olympics. Armstrong has now potentially screwed up McDavid’s best chance at winning the Stanley Cup.
Now I know what you are thinking, McDavid also wants to win a gold medal and he likely only has one, maybe two other opportunities after 2026. Also, this would be the only chance he would have to play with Sidney Crosby, so why one earth would he refuse to play?
Well, the thing is, if you are Canada and McDavid refuses to play for that GM, are you gonna stick with the GM over him? Exactly. So McDavid gets his revenge on Armstrong by getting him ousted and still gets his chance to play for a gold medal.
Would McDavid even think about doing this? Absolutely not. But if we want petty revenge, that could be one of the pettiest.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
