Last week, the St. Louis Blues stunned the Edmonton Oilers and Oilers fans by signing not one but two players to an offer sheet at once. RFAs Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg both agreed to sign with the Blues on two-year contracts, Holloway for $2,290,457 per season and Broberg for $4,580,917 per season.
Already pushing the upper limit of the salary cap, the Oilers are hard pressed to find a way to match these two. If they do, it will require more than just the rumour that Evander Kane will need to begin the season on LTIR due to his injury. And it would also likely require a difficult trade to dump some more cap space. One that will certainly result in the Oilers giving up far more than they’d want to.
That leaves new Oilers GM Stan Bowman with his first real test in his new position. How will he handle this?
Before the official decision is announced in the coming days, we asked Oilers fans what they thought the organization should do in this week’s Sunday Census.
Want to take part in Sunday Census polls? We send them out every week on our Twitter at @oilrigEDM. Follow along or send in ideas for the next poll!
Keep them both!
The Edmonton Oilers are heading into the 2024–25 season with one of the oldest rosters in the league and one of the worst prospect pools around. Losing two of their best and most promising young players at the same time would be a major blow to the team’s short and long-term success.
That is one reason why matching them both won this week’s poll with 36.4% of the vote.
Most of the time, hockey fans like to keep their team’s players and don’t want to lose them, especially the younger, promising ones. Both of these two players fit with the team and have a role with the developing core of the organization. It is important to keep that continuity and keep the players who grew up within the Oilers’ system.
At this stage of the offseason and with the Oilers cap situation where it is, this would be an incredibly difficult decision to make as it would mean putting the team $7,225,541 over the cap, according to Puckpedia.
But maybe the difficulty in making the cap work after this is worth it. Besides, the compensation for the two players is mediocre at best. Just a third round draft pick for Dylan Holloway and a second for Philip Broberg. Well below their draft positions and sneakily offered $1 shy of the next compensation level from the Blues side.
Only match Holloway
Of the two players, Holloway is the one who has made more of a statement and impact in the Oilers’ lineup. That is one reason why it may make sense for the Oilers to only match his offer sheet and let Broberg walk. Finishing as the second most popular option in this week’s poll, 26.4% of fans feel this is the best course of action.
Holloway’s offer sheet is also much cheaper and a much more reasonable price for a player of his calibre, making it significantly easier to handle the cap implications of the deal. Given that he is more or less going to be filling the hole left by Warren Foegele‘s departure, the $2.2M AAV is close to what the predecessor made in that role.
On the other hand, Broberg’s $4.58M AAV deal is a lot more for a player of his experience level. Although he may end up playing in a lineup spot on the Oilers that would command a cap hit that high, especially for a defender with 81 regular season games to his name.
Let them both go
Finishing third place in this week’s player is the option to let both go with 21.2% of fans selecting that option.
Quite simply, do the Oilers want players who signed elsewhere? There were rumours of a trade request from Broberg’s side throughout last season already anyways, now he is trying to cash in and sign elsewhere too?
Additionally, the Oilers are deep enough at forward/wing that they can cover Holloway’s absence quite easily. With just 18 points in 89 games thus far in his NHL career, he hasn’t quite broken out and utilized his skillset at an NHL level yet. Is it worth banking on him breaking out as an integral part of the building of the lineup? And will he even break out enough to stay in the lineup regularly?
For Broberg, his natural position is left defence. He was playing on his off side in the playoffs alongside Darnell Nurse, and if it weren’t for a team-leading 1.101 PDO, he may not have looked as impressive as he seemed to. Do the Oilers want to get caught in yet another false talent evaluation impacted by PDO?
Only match Broberg
The least popular option from this week’s poll was to just match Broberg and let Holloway go. 16% of fans would recommend to go this route. Although it was in last place, it still does have some merit.
It is no secret that the Oilers are cap strapped, as described earlier in the post. For the ease of trying to get through this situation with minimal roster damage to current chances and future assets, only keeping one of the two would be the easiest route to take. There is an argument to make that the one they should keep is Broberg.
As mentioned before, the Oilers are deep at forward. Holloway’s offence has not yet broken out as much as the team would maybe want. They may be able to cover his loss from within the existing lineup. Or, they may be able to cover it from within the prospect pipeline with someone like Matthew Savoie or Raphael Lavoie. Or, they could find the same from the free agent pool for a bit lower AAV.
On the other hand, the Oilers are significantly weaker on defence. Not as much depth, not as much in the prospect pipeline who would be ready to make this jump. Broberg had a great season in the AHL and did look quite good in the playoffs.
Trying to find a replacement for that in the lineup would be trickier and more costly, especially if they need to find someone able to play on the second pairing and who can play on the right side.
For the ease of filling the subsequently opened up roster hole while not overcommitting too much in terms of cap space, matching Broberg could be the path forward.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
Match them both then immediately trade them to Chicago, St. Louis rival, for taylor hall at 50% retained and sign tyson barrie for league minimum. Done.
Must converse
Broberg clearly doesn’t want to be here, so let him go. Keep Holloway because, with kane on ltir for at least half a season, holloway becomes affordable. Plus It already looks bad letting one guy go on peanuts on the dollar, let alone two guys go for peanuts. question to the crowd, Is it within the rule books to trade broberg during this 7 day period and let the new team match at 4.58m?