It is, however, an example of what I view as a relatively large organizational flaw that the Edmonton Oilers have shown over the last number of years: a failure to develop young players at the NHL level.

In Dylan Holloway’s last season with the Oilers, he played just 45 five-on-five minutes with Leon Draisaitl. He played north of 15 minutes just three times during the regular season and played under ten minutes a total of ten times.

Back in 2023-24, it took the Oilers until the Western Conference Final for them to figure out that Philip Broberg was a quality young defenceman. In the regular season, they played Vincent Desharnais over 1,200 minutes while Broberg got a measly 139.

Both the coaching staff and management have continually shown that they favour older, more experienced players, and it’s cost the Oilers on multiple fronts.

I would also add that if the players they were leaning on, like Adam Henrique, Andrew Mangiapane, Trent Frederic, and countless others in the past, actually gave them quality results, then I’d have no problem with the approach. But the older players aren’t cutting it… so why not lean on some players who actually have some upside?

Now, there have been players that the fan base was high on that didn’t work out, like Tyler Benson or Raphael Lavoie. Young players don’t always reach their potential, and it’s not like the list of “ones that got away” is five or six deep here, but not giving young players more opportunity has burned them a few times, and those decisions still sting to this day.

They’ve also made some moves to make up for those. Vasily Podkolzin has been an incredible Oiler and I think there’s a chance he becomes one of the best value deals in the league. I also like the step that Ty Emberson has taken this year.

Don’t take this as me saying that Philp is going to go out and be the next Dylan Holloway, he’s probably never going to be anything more than a fourth-line centre… but you’re telling me the Oilers couldn’t use a cheap right-shot centreman with size?

He has his flaws and maybe if he would have played better during his limited stints with the NHL club, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, but that’s a little of a “chicken or the egg” argument: did Philp struggle because he didn’t get enough opportunity? Or did he not get the opportunity because he struggled to adapt to the NHL game?

I’m willing to say it’s more of the latter.

The team was hesitant to play him north of 10 minutes a game and it’s not like he was stuck to the bench because the Oilers had a bunch of other really quality players sitting in their bottom-six. He was on the bench while the likes of Henrqiue and other more expensive veterans went out and the gave the Oilers incredibly sub-par results.

Instead of leaning towards a young player with upside and letting them try and develop into a useful, cost effective piece, the Oilers kept trotting out the veterans and still didn’t get good results.

Again, it was never a guarantee that Philp was going to pan out, but if you would have given him an honest chance, you would have at least gotten an answer either way. Now, the Carolina Hurricanes will get to reap the benefits, should there be any, while the Oilers will almost surely give up a draft pick before the trade deadline in order to acquire an older, slower right-shot centreman.

These issues can compound.

There are other young pieces down in Bakersfield that are showing some promise. Isaac Howard, Quinn Hutson and Roby Jarventie are all putting together great years in the AHL.

When the time comes, I hope these players will actually get real chances to grow and develop as NHL players and avoid the same experience that players like Holloway had.

Another part of this is that the Oilers have continually struck out when it comes to finding good forwards who can drive play when McDavid or Draisaitl are off the ice.

If the team had a high-end third-line centre who could drive play, maybe Howard would still be up in the NHL. Maybe Kris Knoblauch would play his third line north of 15 minutes a night if they could give him good results.

If they had that back in 2023-24, maybe Holloway would have found his game sooner.

These are multi-layered issues that aren’t as simple as me banging my fist on the table and screaming “play the kids,” but the team is eventually going to need a layer of young, quality, affordable depth pieces to emerge and find success at the NHL level because just leaning on the same old veteran players that continually under perform isn’t going to cut it going forward.

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