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Some major bombshells in from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet on the Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway offer sheets. Friedman said he thinks the Oilers will match the Holloway offer, but he’s not sure about the Broberg offer.
Speaking with Bob Stauffer of Oilers Now, Friedman said there was no way that St. Louis would have made such offer sheets if Ken Holland was still GM of the Edmonton Oilers. Holland was replaced by Stan Bowman in July.
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“If Ken Holland was still the GM of the Edmonton Oilers there’s no way these offer sheets are getting done. I do think that (St. Louis GM) Doug Armstrong’s friendship with Ken Holland absolutely plays a role in how this played out.”
Friedman also suggested that Broberg was unhappy with how the Edmonton Oilers were handling him during the season and that the player may well still be unhappy.
Broberg was sent down to the American Hockey League for much of the 2023-24 season, this after the Oilers had traded in previous years for veteran players like Brett Kulak and Mattias Ekholm, blocking his progress.
The Broberg offer sheet had been percolating for some time, Friedman said. “It’s becoming more and more clear to me now that Broberg had thought long and hard.”
It was never confirmed that Broberg had asked for a trade in December 2023 after his AHL demotion, Friedman said, but that is in fact what happened. Things got better for Broberg as this season progressed with the young Swede playing well in both the AHL and also the NHL playoffs.
But Friedman said of the Broberg trade request, “I’m just not convinced he ever changed his mind.”
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All agents push for Restricted Free Agent offer sheets, Friedman said. Other teams than St. Louis also considered it, with St. Louis deciding that going after two young Oilers was the best bet for success. Dylan Holloway took more convincing than Broberg did to sign the offer sheet but finally came around to it.
The Oilers tried to sign Holloway, making the young player a three year offer, but it was at a lower number than Holloway and his agent wanted to take.
With Broberg, Friedman heard the player was looking for $1.8 million, but it’s uncertain how things were going. “I had one person say to me that they’re not even convinced the Oilers made anything too deep because they knew that Broberg wanted a trade. The bottom line is this: they were far, far apart on Broberg. They knew they had a player that was unhappy.”
If Broberg hasn’t changed his mind about the Oilers, Stauffer suggested that has to be factored in to the Oilers’ decision on whether to match or not.
Friedman said one reason that Broberg was happy to sign in St. Louis was because he knew he was going to play the left side, his strong side. In Edmonton in the playoffs, he had had to play his off-side on the right, pairing with Darnell Nurse.
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Stauffer agreed with this point and said the Oilers have some culpability here in not making it easy for Broberg or Holloway to break onto the big team.
As for matching the Broberg offer sheet, Friedman said, “The big challenge is that if you match Broberg, that throws you out of whack (in terms of the salary cap). It’s a big poison pill.”
A big risk is that the Broberg camp has asked for a trade before, Stauffer said. “The camp has not been happy.” But he added that he’s never heard such unhappiness out of the Holloway camp.
Said Friedman: “If the Oilers match and they keep Broberg, they’ve got two years to sort that out. Like, he’s going to play, he’s going to play a lot and eventually he’s going to play on his strong side, if he isn’t next year… If they match him they’ve got two years to figure it out and build a new relationship… If they match it, they can’t trade him for a year. So it’s in Broberg’s best interest and their best interest to make it work. I do believe relationships can be changed.”
My take
1. Fascinating information, especially if Friedman is reading this right and relations between Broberg and the Oilers have soured to some extent. Friedman is a sharp guy with great sources, so I put a huge amount of weight in his opinion on this. It’s credible.
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2. Do the Oilers want to invest a lot in a player who is not keen to be here? I guess that depends on just how ticked off both sides are at this point. But I agree with Friedman, that if the Oilers do match, there is all kinds of time to sort out things and forge a new relationship.
Stan Bowman is in charge now, not Holland, with relatively new coaches in Kris Knoblauch and Paul Coffey. Both of those coaches might be great for Broberg.
3. Finally, if the Oilers match this massive raise to Broberg, that is something of a brilliant start to any new relationship, no? If Broberg is looking to see the Oilers put faith in and go with him and commit to him, matching the St. Louis offer is putting Edmonton’s money where its mouth is, correct?
All that said, given what Friedman and Stauffer just said, it’s sounding unlikely the Oilers will match the St. Louis offer.
4. As for the Ken Holland tidbit, NHL insider John Shannon earlier said he thought Armstrong would have done the same to the Oilers even if Holland were in charge. Friedman disagrees with that.
I put weight in what both these experienced observers have to say. We don’t know the answer for sure because we can’t read Armstrong’s mind.
At the same time. Armstrong’s job is to win, so he could well have proceeded whoever was in charge of the Oilers, even Holland.
At the Cult of Hockey
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