The signings of Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner this summer have bolstered Edmonton’s already impressive offensive lineup, making their forward core arguably the best in the league. However, the team’s defence remains their major uncertainty heading into 2024-25.
On the one hand, Edmonton’s top defensive pair of Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard had an exceptional run in the 2024 playoffs, with the Oilers outscoring opponents 22 to 12 with that duo on-ice at 5v5. Unfortunately, their major defensive problems arose with their bottom-two pairings on ice.
Without Ekholm and Bouchard on the ice, the Oilers were outscored at an appalling ratio of 22 to 35 at 5-on-5. Their second pair was specifically the major culprit for these results, as it was outscored 12 to 24 — an exact 2:1 ratio — while holding a ghastly 39 percent expected goal differential. Although the Oilers were ultimately a game away from winning it all, this was a significant issue that persisted through the entire run.
One major change Edmonton made to their bottom-two pairs later on in the playoffs was the insertion of Philip Broberg into their lineup.
Drafted 8th overall in 2019, Broberg spent most of the 2023-24 regular season in the AHL, playing 49 games with the Bakersfield Condors compared to 12 games with the Oilers. However, he would end up playing the final three games of the NHL Western Conference Finals and all seven games of the Stanley Cup Finals with Edmonton.
Broberg, a left-shot defenceman, initially started the playoffs as a left-defenceman, the natural position he’s played at for most of his professional career. But, he played on the right side for nearly the entirety of the Stanley Cup Finals.
For Broberg to see an increased NHL role, expect him to play significant minutes at right-defence this upcoming season. Edmonton has yet to make any significant additions to the blueline, leaving the right side relatively weak beyond Evan Bouchard, and with Mattias Ekholm, Darnell Nurse, and Brett Kulak all on the left side (for now), there are limited opportunities for Broberg to play on his strong side. There is a glaring hole at 2RD.
On average, not many NHL defencemen perform better on their off-side as opposed to their natural side, notably when it comes to younger, inexperienced defenders. Can Broberg become an exception and develop into the effective second-pairing right defenceman that Edmonton needs in 2024-25?
Here is a closer look.
*All microstats via AllThreeZones, all on-ice stats via EvolvingHockey and Natural Stat Trick unless stated otherwise
Diving into Broberg’s RD experience in lower leagues
Given the relatively limited sample size of Broberg playing on his off-side in the NHL, I would like to examine his play on the right side in other leagues.
In the first two seasons following Broberg’s draft, he played with the Skellefteå AIK of the Swedish Hockey League. He then alternated between the NHL and AHL over the next three seasons, accumulating 81 games with the Oilers and 87 games with the Bakersfield Condors.
With the Condors, Broberg predominantly played on the left side, spending significant time next to Philip Kemp or Ben Gleason this past season. He hardly played consistent, meaningful minutes on the right side in the AHL.
Instead, most of his experience at RD came with Skellefteå in Sweden.
Credit: https://twitter.com/EdmontonOilers
This is something I looked into in-depth last summer. I went back and watched numerous games of Broberg’s play in the 2020-21 season – his most recent season in Sweden – and manually tracked zone exits for all Skellefteå defencemen.
My focus on specifically tracking zone exit data stemmed from a previous study that analyzed how well defencemen moved the puck when playing on their off-side. I would highly recommend reading the entire article in detail, but in summary, the study revealed that, on average, NHL defencemen struggled with zone exits when playing on their off-side.
While I did not have the time to watch all of Skellefteå’s games, I tracked enough to obtain a decent sample. Here are the results:
Note: The goal differential data is for the entire season, while the zone exit data is for the games I specifically tracked
Overall, Broberg’s results in 2020-21 were rather mediocre. Skellefteå held a 46 percent goal differential at even-strength with Broberg on-ice (22 goals for, 26 goals against) while improving to 63 percent without him (80 goals for, 48 against). In fact, he was Skellefteå’s lone defenceman, ranking as a net negative in goal differential.
However, as observed from the visual above, he performed significantly better on his natural side.
Broberg’s goal differential increased by a solid eight percent in the games in which he was listed as a LD, while his controlled exit rates improved, and his turnover rates decreased. Notably, he saw a substantial improvement in his controlled exit volume when playing on his strong side.
Now, one flaw with this process is that Skellefteå deployed seven defencemen per game for the vast majority of the 2020-21 season. This meant that the pairings often shuffled and rotated throughout games, so Broberg did not necessarily play every shift at LD in the games in which he was officially listed as a LD, and vice versa.
Consequently, I also tracked which lane of the ice every zone exit occurred in (left, right, or centre). I discovered that Broberg’s controlled-exit-to-turnover ratio on the left side of the ice was 6.1, while it significantly dropped to 1.2 on the right side. In other terms, Broberg averaged far more possession exits than turnovers on the left side of the ice as opposed to the right.
Some may mention that Broberg sustained injuries playing in the 2021 World Juniors, which may have affected some of these results; however, Broberg’s goal differential prior to the WJC from September through early December ranked at an even worse 35 percent. I am doubtful to what extent this truly affected his play.
All-in-all, considering both the total SHL season data we have available and the data manually collected from the games I watched, it is reasonable to deduce that Broberg was simply not effective at RD in his most recent season in Sweden, which is where he held the significant majority of his experience on the right side. From the people I talked to who also watched Broberg play that season, they would mainly agree.
Analyzing Broberg’s NHL performance at RD (so far)
Broberg has played a total of 81 NHL regular-season games with Edmonton. Here are his results next to left-handed and right-handed defensive partners:
In total, Broberg spent roughly ~73% of his TOI next to a right-handed defensive partner. Comparing both situations, there is not a massive difference in his goal differential results, but Broberg’s on-ice scoring chance results are substantially superior next to a right-handed defender; this suggests that his lower goal differential is partially caused by bad luck and would improve over a greater sample. But regardless, it is once again evident that he is more effective on the left side.
It must also be mentioned that Broberg never played a consistent, extended period of time on the right side. He played a few games games at RD with Duncan Keith in 2022, and some games with Brett Kulak in 2023, but a large chunk of his shifts next to an LHD occurred when the team ran seven defencemen; he never truly played enough games specifically at RD from start to finish. Prior to this past May, the evidence suggesting that Broberg could be an effective NHL RD was limited.
However, the 2024 playoffs were a fascinating story.
Broberg’s three most common partners in the playoffs were Darnell Nurse, Cody Ceci, and Brett Kulak; here are his results with each of them:
As mentioned earlier, Broberg’s first three games in the playoffs were at LD with Cody Ceci, and they played relatively well. They held a +2 goal differential, and produced positive chance and shot metrics. In fact, Broberg was the only defenceman who was able to post net-positive on-ice results next to Ceci in the playoffs.
In Games 1 and 2 of the cup finals, Broberg was then paired at right defence next to Brett Kulak, and although they did not allow any goals, they were significantly hemmed into their own zone and out-chanced by Florida.
Then, Broberg would play the final five games of the SCF with Darnell Nurse, his most common defensive partner in the playoffs. This pair had some very intriguing results.
On the bright side, the Oilers out-scored Florida 4 to 2 at 5v5 with that duo on-ice. In fact, this was the only Nurse pairing with a positive goal differential in the 2024 playoffs.
Furthermore, Broberg was Edmonton’s overall best defenceman at zone exits in the Stanley Cup Finals:
This is a direct contrast to my tracked exit results from his season in Skellefteå. Mainly playing at RD, Broberg was superb at moving the puck in the cup finals, with his tremendous skating fully on display. For a 23-year-old defenceman to accomplish this in the Stanley Cup Finals against the league’s best forechecking team while primarily playing on his off-side is truly impressive.
However, this pairing’s goal differential was extremely unsustainable.
The Nurse – Broberg pair was heavily outplayed by Florida in terms of shots, scoring chances and possession. With that duo on-ice at 5v5, the Oilers were outshot 23 to 38 and out-chanced 9 to 18 in terms of high-danger chances.
The pair’s positive goal share can primarily be attributed to a 17 percent on-ice shooting percentage and a 94.7 percent on-ice save percentage, resulting in a 1.12 PDO. For context, PDO is a stat that adds up on-ice SH% and SV%, and is often used as a proxy for puck luck. Most players will have a PDO of roughly 1.00, and historically, no defensive pair with over 500 minutes played has maintained a PDO above 1.03 in the era of advanced metrics in hockey (post-2007-08).
In reality, the Nurse – Broberg pair mightily struggled, and their goal differential was highly unsustainable. They were fortunate not to be significantly outscored, and in a larger sample where their PDO regresses to the mean, their goal differential would be much worse.
In my opinion, there are three primary reasons for these struggles.
The first reason is the performance of Darnell Nurse, who simply had a terrible playoff run. He heavily struggled to exit the zone against Florida’s forecheck, often making numerous mistakes resulting in prime scoring chances, and this was a huge reason for the pair’s awful shot and chance results.
Secondly, while Broberg did average the most controlled exits on the team, he also held the second-highest failed exit rate. He still held the second best controlled-to-failed-exit ratio, so overall, he was an effective puck-mover, but for the failed exits he did make, they would occasionally result in dangerous chances.
Finally, both of them struggled to defend in-zone. What would often occur is that Florida would force a turnover, and then maintain prolonged offensive zone pressure in Edmonton’s zone. Both Broberg and Nurse would spend extended periods in their own end, failing to efficiently break up the cycle at an adequate rate as the Panthers generated quality shots.
Combine these three factors, and it becomes evident that Edmonton was quite fortunate that pairing was not absolutely lit up. This must be considered by Edmonton’s coaching staff when deploying the defensive pairs this upcoming season.
Final Thoughts: what does all of this mean?
Apr 17, 2024; Tempe, Arizona, USA; Edmonton Oilers defenseman Philip Broberg (86) against the Arizona Coyotes at Mullett Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
So, we have some differing results here.
On the one hand, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Broberg will likely not be an effective right-defenceman. He has played the majority of his professional career at LD, and in his most significant experience at RD (in Sweden), he struggled. Broberg’s overall on-ice results in Edmonton are far superior next to a right-handed defender as opposed to a left-handed one.
On the other hand, one significant reason why many defencemen are less effective on their off-side is due to their decline in zone exit efficiency; however, Broberg led Edmonton’s defencemen in controlled exits playing on his off-side in the cup finals, the biggest stage in the world. Of course, you have to be careful about using results from any seven-game sample to project future performance, even if it’s the cup finals, but at the very least, these finals suggest that there is potential for Broberg.
One noteworthy and underrated strength of Broberg’s game is his tight gap control and effective rush defending. In both the regular season and the playoffs, Broberg’s zone entry denial rates have been excellent.
I have long maintained my stance that the ideal defensive partner for Darnell Nurse is someone who can efficiently move the puck and effectively defend zone entries (ideally, they should be a solid cycle defender as well). Broberg checks off the box for entry defence, and he is excellent at puck-moving on the left side.
Moving forward, the greatest question marks for him will be how well he can exit the zone on his off-side and if he can efficiently defend the cycle, which is likely his number one weakness at the moment.
So, with everything in mind, how should they deploy Broberg?
In my opinion, if the Oilers are inclined towards playing Broberg on the right side, I would start him on the third pair to start the season.
Allow Broberg to get fully adjusted to playing his off-side at the NHL level for roughly ~10-20 games in an easier, sheltered role. I would not immediately put him back into the 2RD spot to begin the season. If he performs well and successfully adapts at 3RD, then consider promoting him to the second pair to see if Nurse – Broberg can be a successful pair.
That said, pairing Broberg with Nurse is certainly not the only option that Edmonton holds. The Oilers additionally possess the alternative of splitting up Ekholm and Bouchard and instead pairing Broberg next to his fellow countryman in Ekholm.
This is not the ideal scenario, as the Ekholm/Bouchard pair is arguably a top-two defensive pairing in the entire NHL, and it would be preferable to keep them together; but, Edmonton simply cannot head into the 2025 playoffs without three capable defensive pairs, so perhaps splitting them up to balance the defensive core is an alternative worth considering.
If Broberg is to succeed at right-defence in the NHL, I believe there is a much greater chance it occurs next to a reliable defensive player such as Ekholm. It is worth mentioning that Ekholm has played some time at right-defence in Nashville, so you could also try “Broberg – Ekholm” as the technical pair (although Ekholm’s results did decline at RD with the Predators).
If Bouchard can carry his own pairing, and I believe he can, it would be huge for Edmonton. In a limited sample, Brett Kulak and Evan Bouchard have shown promise as a pairing, holding a superb 70 percent expected goal differential, suggesting that there is potential there. Perhaps one option is for Edmonton to run pairings of Kulak/Bouchard, Broberg/Ekholm, and Nurse/Stecher, potentially allowing for three balanced pairs (with Nurse being sheltered). I would be interested in experimenting with this option before the trade deadline.
However, if Broberg does not play well at right-defence, and if Ekholm is also relatively ineffective at RD, the team’s best and most likely option is to have Nurse and Broberg play at LD on their own respective pairs. This significantly raises the chances that Kulak will be dealt — especially considering reports that he is not comfortable at right-defence — and Edmonton will target a top-four right-defenceman at the deadline.
I believe this is a key reason why Edmonton has yet to acquire a major defensive upgrade. Not only is the RHD market currently quite shallow, but I’m guessing management likely wants to first evaluate how Broberg performs at RD over a large sample, and then decide whether to acquire a 2RD upgrade or not at the deadline. We’ll see how it all works out.
All-in-all, one of the biggest question marks heading into 2024-25 for the Oilers will be the potential performance of Philip Broberg on the right side. It will undoubtedly have a significant impact on their trade deadline plans and what defensive pairs they run in the 2025 playoffs.
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