Who says gamesmanship in hockey is dead?
The St. Louis Blues have tendered offer sheets to a pair of Edmonton’s restricted free agents, opening a 7 day window for the Oilers to either match them or receive draft compensation in return.
Defenceman Philip Broberg received a 2 year, $4,589,917 AAV offer, while forward Dylan Holloway received a 2 year, $2,290,457 AAV offer himself. Under the terms of the current CBA, if the Oilers do not match those offers, they would received a 2nd round draft pick for Broberg and a 3rd for Holloway.
The figures chosen by St. Louis are no coincidence either, as they each fall exactly $1 short of escalating into a 1st for Broberg and a 2nd for Holloway. Considering that Edmonton selected the 6’4″ Swedish blue liner 9th overall in 2019, and the Alberta born winger 14th overall in 2020, receiving either for a later round draft pick would be a shrewd bit of business on St. Louis’ part.
“The Blues will have no further comment until the Oilers have made their decision as to whether to match the terms of either offer or accept the commensurate compensation,” the Blues said in their press release.
Edmonton, fresh off a run to the Stanley Cup finals this spring, opened the year as the betting favourites to hoist Lord Stanley’s mug at most sports books this offseason. That was largely predicated on the fact that they would be returning most of their core pieces, while also adding depth scoring in the form of Viktor Arvidsson, and Jeff Skinner.
Those moves, plus the re-signing of several veterans has left Edmonton flush up against the cap however. In fact, PuckPedia has the Oilers projected to be roughly $350K over the salary cap as things currently stand. So with St. Louis swooping in and increasing the AAV of two of the club’s star prospects, Edmonton is suddenly feeling a very real financial crunch.
One saving grace which could create some temporary relief is the health status of forward Evander Kane. Kane suffered an injury during the team’s postseason run, ultimately missing out on several games during the Stanley Cup final. If he were to be moved to long term injured reserve, that could potentially free up some much needed cap space for Edmonton to be able to retain at least one of the two pending RFAs.
The 33 year old is currently signed to an $5.125M AAV contract through 2025-26.
While the move makes perfect hockey sense on paper for St. Louis, many have already begun to speculate that there may also be ulterior motives at play.
Fans have openly complained for years that NHL front offices don’t use offer sheets nearly enough. To which GMs have responded with the usual lines of “respect” and wanting to maintain good relationships with people who you may need to make a trade with down the line.
Which in a vacuum sounds well and good, though it may not satisfy the wants of certain fanbases who find themselves perennially stuck in rebuild mode. Which begs the question as to why St. Louis would suddenly offer sheet not just one, but two players under Edmonton control. Which is the hockey equivalent of an act of war on the front office’s part if the lines about “respect” are to be believed.
Some have speculated that it may be as a result of the Oilers’ controversial hiring of disgraced former Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman. Bowman was involved in the widely reported sexual assault scandal in Chicago, and was subsequently barred from NHL activity for an indefinite period of time.
This offseason, the NHL lifted the embargo, paving the way for Bowman and others to return to the highest levels of hockey, and Edmonton wasted little time in scooping him up.
The decision to do so sparked public outcry from numerous hockey circles, as well as the team’s own fanbase.
For St. Louis’ part, there’s a realistic explanation which they could lean on that would carry water to a degree. Few other teams had both the prospects and financial constraints that the Oilers had heading into this season, making them ripe for an offer sheet. Therefore, there was nothing personal about the maneuvers, it was simply a prudent hockey decision for a team looking to make their way back to the postseason for the first time since 2021-22.
Fans will likely never know all the inner workings of the decision to tender offer sheets to Broberg and Holloway, so they’ll be forced to accept whatever public message the team relays after the 7 day window closes. But given the circumstances, one can be excused if they tend to believe that there may be more of a personal element to the offer sheets beyond just on ice roster construction.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Jenn G. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.