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The reasoning behind the Oilers' decision not to match Broberg and Holloway offer sheets
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    The reasoning behind the Oilers’ decision not to match Broberg and Holloway offer sheets

    EDMONTON — Edmonton Oilers general manager Stan Bowman is sitting across the table from the agent for Leon Draisaitl, or Evan Bouchard, or Connor McDavid, making his pitch.

    “I know your comparables are higher than our offer,” Bowman is saying. “But if you take a little bit less, I can keep this core together and win some Stanley Cups.”

    There is no guarantee, of course, that anyone on the Oilers roster will be willing to take a small haircut to keep the band together.

    However, this IS a guarantee: If Bowman blinked and overpaid a couple of youngsters in Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway who have a grand total 170 NHL games played between them — giving them a far bigger piece of the salary-cap pie than they have earned — the entire model of “taking less to win” blows up.

    Never mind how that would play out in a room full of veterans such as Adam Henrique, Connor Brown, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Mattias Janmark who have taken less money and term to play in Edmonton.

    “It was nice to see that the Oilers are a destination for players that are focused more so on trying to win a championship. It was obvious that the players that chose to come to Edmonton likely (left) money on the table,” Bowman said in a Zoom call Tuesday. “This came down to a business decision relative to our short term as well as long-term viability for our roster with the salary cap.

    “When you put this whole situation together, we feel like we’ve been able to … give us a lot of flexibility and options moving forward.”

    After trading $3.25-million defenceman Cody Ceci to free up the cap space that seemed necessary to match the St. Louis Blues offer sheets on Broberg and Holloway, the Oilers pivoted on Monday. Instead, Bowman opted to take the cap space created by the loss of the three players and declined to match the offer sheets, settling for compensation totalling the Blues’ second- and third-round draft picks in 2025.

    In the past week, Bowman also picked up 23-year-old Vasili Podkolzin for a fourth-round pick, grabbed right-shot defenceman Ty Emberson, 24, in the Ceci trade, and has enough cap space now that Evander Kane won’t have to go on long-term injury reserve unless Bowman and Co. choose to go that route. But they won’t be forced to be an LTIR team, another preferred outcome from this sticky situation.

    In short, Bowman chose $10 million in cap space over the three players — Ceci, Holloway and Broberg — and grabbed a couple of draft picks that will leave the Oilers with maximum flexibility at this season’s trade deadline.

    Bowman made it clear that an Oilers’ cap management plan that will be a bit of a high-wire act in the next 12 months could not be adversely altered by a pair of young players you would like to have retained, but who are not core players.

    Instead of the two drafted and developed first-rounders — who became unexpectedly overpriced with the Blues’ offer sheets — the Oilers will settle for the extra cap space, be able to avoid being in LTIR over Kane, and have more financial freedom to sign three far more important players in Draisaitl, Bouchard and McDavid.

    “When you put this whole situation together, we feel like we’ve been able to (accrue) a lot of options and flexibility going forward,” Bowman said. “We were faced with a challenging situation, but I think we move forward with the best series of transactions.”

    There is some risk here: The right side of the Oilers blueline is weak as of today, lacking a genuine No. 2-pairing player to line up alongside Darnell Nurse. But Bowman’s team is likely good enough to remain a contender until he can use the cap space and assets accrued this week to find the right D-man — and he may sign a cheap UFA in the nearer term.

    That’s a problem that can be solved.

    There was also the possibility that matching these offer sheets could have left Edmonton vulnerable to offer sheets on Bouchard or Draisaitl, a factor that goes away with this added roster flexibility.

    Look, the best-case scenario would have been to simply keep Broberg at $1.5 million, and Holloway at somewhere around $1.25 million. But St. Louis eliminated that scenario.

    Bowman made the best of a tough situation here, and maintained the most important factors for a team trying to win a Stanley Cup: the ability to sign their most important players and a chance to add at the deadline, when it will be much clearer what this Oilers team needs to win one more game in the spring of 2025 than it did the year before.

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    Oilers decline to match Blues’ offer sheets for Broberg, Holloway


    ‘Cap space is king’: Fans react to offer sheet drama

    The Edmonton Oilers recently made headlines when they decided not to match the offer sheets extended to their top prospects, Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway. Many fans were left scratching their heads at this decision, wondering why the team would let go of two promising young players. However, there is actually sound reasoning behind the Oilers’ choice.

    One of the main factors that likely influenced the Oilers’ decision was salary cap constraints. The NHL has a salary cap in place to ensure competitive balance among teams, and the Oilers were already close to the cap limit before the offer sheets were extended. Matching the offers for Broberg and Holloway would have put them even closer to the cap ceiling, potentially limiting their ability to make other roster moves in the future.

    Additionally, the Oilers may have felt that the offers made to Broberg and Holloway were simply too rich for their liking. Offer sheets are often designed to put pressure on a team to match a contract that may be above market value for the player in question. In this case, the Oilers may have felt that the contracts offered to Broberg and Holloway were not in line with their value to the team, and therefore chose not to match them.

    Another factor that could have played a role in the Oilers’ decision is the long-term implications of matching the offer sheets. By letting go of Broberg and Holloway, the team may have freed up cap space and roster spots for other players who could have a more immediate impact on the team’s success. In the fast-paced world of professional sports, teams often have to make tough decisions about which players to keep and which ones to let go in order to build a competitive roster.

    While it may be disappointing for fans to see promising young players leave the team, it’s important to remember that professional sports is a business, and decisions are often made with the long-term success of the team in mind. The Oilers’ choice not to match the offer sheets for Broberg and Holloway was likely made after careful consideration of various factors, including salary cap constraints, player value, and long-term roster planning. Only time will tell if this decision pays off for the team in the end.