The Edmonton Oilers had one week in which to make decisions on whether to match the offer sheets given to Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway by the St. Louis Blues and after the trades made yesterday, the decisions may have been made.
To recap (in case you have been living under a rock), the Blues offer sheeted Broberg and Holloway as follows:
To sign both players, the Oilers would be massively over the salary cap for this season. Even if they put Evander Kane on LTIR, they would still be over the cap to start the season. And even if they signed both players and made a trade, it would severely limit their ability to sign Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard next summer.
However, yesterday, the Oilers made the following trades:
What do these two deals mean for Holloway and Broberg?
The Oilers have acquired left-shot right winger Vasily Podkolzin from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a 2025 fourth-round pick. A tweener in the Canucks’ system, the Russian winger was a former high first round pick with huge offensive potential that was largely untapped in Vancouver. He did spend large chunks of the past two seasons in the AHL, and with the Canucks adding four wingers this summer, the odds were that he was the odd man out to start the year.
In making this addition, it seems unlikely that the Oilers would be keeping Holloway. While Podkolzin is a right winger and Holloway is a left winger, both shoot the same way and the former could be used on his more natural side. Further, being on contract for $1M, the Oilers get a more cost-controlled winger to add to their middle six, albeit with substantially more risk than Holloway.
However, they have cleared an additional million dollars in cap space to be used for Broberg. Couple that with the trading of Cody Ceci‘s $3.25M contract to San Jose, and the Oilers now have the cap room to bring Broberg back. They did also acquire defensive defenceman Ty Emberson from San Jose, but the former first-round pick Broberg definitely has more upside at this point in his career. It seems likely that they will match Broberg’s offer sheet.
How would the cap math work if the Oilers signed Broberg?
By signing Broberg and losing Holloway, the Oilers could keep Kane off the LTIR and still be cap compliant. This would be the easiest and best case scenario.
If they wanted to match both offer sheets, they could do so by sending Kane to the LTIR and would need to send at least one player down to the AHL. A player like Emberson, Josh Brown, or otherwise would make the most sense. With word being that even if Kane went on LTIR he would need to come off it before the end of the season, this is another issue that the team would need to solve at some point this year.
Keeping Holloway and losing Broberg would also require no further moves, but seems unlikely at this point.
Is acquiring Podkolzin enough to let Holloway go? Perhaps it is, but there is significant risk in that move. Where Holloway has shown he can slide into a middle six role in the NHL, Podkolzin hasn’t since his rookie season. If the Oilers lose Holloway and Podkolzin isn’t good enough for the NHL, there is a massive gap in the middle six that the team would need to solve for quickly. Matthew Savoie or another forward may be able to plug that hole but it is another major risk the team will have to solve for.
However, with just one day left before the deadline, the writing is on the wall for the Oilers and their decision with their two pending offer-sheeted players.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
