Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg celebrate a goal with the Edmonton Oilers in 2022 pre-season action. (Photo by Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images)
NHLI via Getty Images
The St. Louis Blues got their men.
One week after signing Edmonton Oilers forward Dylan Holloway and defenseman Philip Broberg to offer sheets, the Blues announced that the two players have become their property after the Oilers declined to match the terms of either contract.
Broberg, 23, is now under contract for the next two seasons at a cap hit of $4.58 million per season while Holloway, 22, has a deal for two years at $2.29 million. Both players will be restricted free agents with arbitration rights at the end of those contracts.
As compensation for the two players, the Oilers will receive the Blues’ second and third-round picks in the 2025 draft.
Part of the drama surrounding offer sheets is that bad blood is perceived to boil up when one team poaches another team’s player(s). In this case, the scenario concluded amicably enough that the two sides also completed a trade on Tuesday. The Blues dealt prospect Paul Fischer and a third-round pick in 2028 to the Oilers in exchange for future considerations. Fischer is a 19-year-old defenseman who was selected in the fifth round in 2023. He is entering his sophomore season at Notre Dame.
One of the reasons why offer sheets have been rarely used in the NHL is because they’ve almost always been matched — in essence, serving only to drive up player salaries. But this is the second-straight scenario where a team has declined to match. In 2021, the Montreal Canadiens received first and third-round picks from the Carolina Hurricanes by declining their matching rights for their 2018 third-overall pick, Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi was the last player to be acquired via offer sheet. He was signed by the Carolina Hurricanes in 2021. (Photo by Josh Lavallee/NHLI via Getty Images)
NHLI via Getty Images
The Hurricanes signed the 21-year-old Finnish forward to a one-year deal with a cap hit of $6.1 million, then followed up with an eight-year deal with a cap hit of $4.82 million. Now 24, Kotkaniemi has six years remaining on that contract. During his three seasons with the Hurricanes, he has averaged 13:20 of ice time over 227 games while putting up 42 goals and 99 points.
What the Blues are Getting
In Broberg and Holloway, St. Louis is adding a pair of former first-round draft picks who are no longer exempt from waivers but have not yet established themselves at the NHL level.
Both players joined the Oilers organization in the 2021-22 season — Broberg, coming from his native Sweden and Holloway coming out of the University of Wisconsin after two seasons.
Splitting their time between the Oilers and the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, Broberg appeared in 81 NHL games, but just 12 last season. He had a coming-out party when he was inserted into the Edmonton lineup during the team’s run to the Stanley Cup Final, scoring two goals and averaging 15:38 of ice time through 10 games.
Holloway accumulated 89 games of NHL experience over the last two seasons but played limited minutes. He tallied nine goals and 18 points in the regular season and dressed for all 25 playoff games last spring, where he had five goals and seven points and threw 86 hits while averaging 11:30 per game.
After missing the playoffs for the last two seasons, the Blues are at a different stage of their franchise’s life cycle than the Oilers — more future-focused, rather than trying to win now. Robert Thomas, 25, Jordan Kyrou, 26 and Pavel Buchnevich, 29, are leading the way offensively, and Holloway will get an opportunity to play a bigger role up front than he did in Edmonton.
The Blues’ core defensemen are all over 30, and left-sider Torey Krug is on the injured list with the prospect of a full-season absence on the table. Broberg also plays the left side and is a big body, at 6’4”.
If he can effectively fill a spot in the Blues’ top four, he’ll quickly deliver full value for that $4.58 million cap hit.
How the Oilers are Coping
After a flurry of veteran signings when free agency opened on July 1, the Oilers quickly put themselves right up against the salary-cap ceiling. That set a hard limit on what they were able to offer Broberg and Holloway. As restricted free agents without arbitration rights as they came out of their entry-level contracts, the pair had limited bargaining power — until the offer sheet option came along with significant raises attached.
During their seven-day decision period after the offer sheets were announced last Tuesday, the Oilers made two trades on Sunday — adding a pair of young players at lower price points.
First, they acquired winger Vasily Podkolzin from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a fourth-round pick. The 23-year-old was a first-round pick in 2019 and has 137 games of NHL experience, but spent most of last season with AHL Abbotsford. He is signed for the next two seasons at a cap hit of $1 million.
Then, Edmonton dealt 30-year-old defenseman Cody Ceci and a third-round pick to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for defenseman Ty Emberson. Like Ceci, the 24-year-old plays on the right side. Drafted in the third round in 2018, Emberson played 30 games for the Sharks last season, his first NHL experience. He’s signed for one season at $950,000. The Oilers shed the last year of Ceci’s current deal, which carried a cap hit of $3.25 million.
According to PuckPedia, these moves now make the Oilers cap compliant with a 22-player roster that includes Evander Kane. He’s expected to miss the early part of the season after having surgery but if Edmonton is able to avoid moving his cap hit of $5.125 million to long-term injured reserve, the team will be able to accrue cap space that it could use to make more additions leading up to the trade deadline next spring.
For a club that’s chasing the Stanley Cup, that’s valuable. But before they get there, they’ll be weaker on the blue line. In addition to losing Broberg and Ceci, Vincent Desharnais also left the team on July 1, signing as a free agent with the Vancouver Canucks.
As a team that has been chasing playoff success for years, Edmonton’s prospect pool is already thin. By saying goodbye to Broberg and Holloway, they cut ties with two of the most promising young players in their organization. Unless Podkolzin and Emberson take big steps forward, they’ll be missed.
But for a cap-strapped team in win-now mode, it’s the cost of doing business.