The St. Louis Blues took a big swing Tuesday morning, complicating the Edmonton Oilers’ offseason by tenuring offer sheets to Philip Brobeg and Dylan Holloway.
The Oilers have found themselves in a precarious position, deciding to either let match or allow one or both players to join the Blues.
St. Louis signed them to two-year deals, Broberg’s for $4,580,917 and Holloway’s for $2,290,457, where Edmonton would receive a second-round pick for the defenceman and a third-round pick for the winger. One more dollar for either player and the compensation would’ve increased, highlighting how the Blues looked to thread the needle between adding players, and not giving up too much in potential compensation, while still throwing a wrench in the Oilers’ summer.
Details of the contracts have since become public in thanks to salary cap resource site PuckPedia, revealing that Broberg and Holloway’s deals are straightforward. Each contract is all in salary, carrying no signing bonuses. What’s notable about the deals is that while both will be restricted free agents after the contracts expire, their qualifying offers will be at the dollar amounts the Blues signed them to.
For the Oilers, however, they have a number of players who have contracts expiring after the 2025-26 season as unrestricted free agents: Connor McDavid, Evander Kane, Viktor Arvidsson, Adam Henrique, Mattias Ekholm, Brett Kulak and Troy Stecher. Of the group, McDavid will surely return to Edmonton, and Ekholm returning — despite being 36 at the time — would make sense if his game is still in a good place.
If the Oilers choose to match, the team will be $7,225,541 over the salary cap, according to PuckPedia. If Kane lands on LTIR, it would leave the club $3.675-million over the cap. A trade of Cody Ceci, and the assignment of one player to the American Hockey League, and the Oilers are easily under the salary cap heading into next season.
How long Kane’s recovery from a potential surgery could take could certainly complicate things, but there are options for the Oilers to be able to match the offer sheets.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
