Edmonton Oilers general manager Stan Bowman has spoken out for the first time since the St. Louis Blues tenured offer sheets to Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, ones his team ultimately declined to match on Tuesday.
In a statement, Bowman said it was ultimately a “business decision” to allow the pair to join the Blues.
“We took our time and exhausted all opportunities and decided not to match,” Bowman said in a tweet shared by Sportsnet’s Gene Principe. “This became a business decision short/long term. We moved forward with best moves going into training camp.”
From @EdmontonOilers Stan Bowman on not matching offer sheets for Broberg/Holloway "We took our time and exhausted all opportunities and decided not to match. This became a business decision short/long term. We moved forward with best moves going into training camp."
— Gene Principe (@GenePrincipe) August 20, 2024
By not matching, the Oilers received a second and third-round pick in the 2025 draft as compensation, following the NHL’s guidelines, while also getting the Blues to send a third-round pick in 2028 and the rights to defenceman Paul Fischer to the Oilers. Fischer, 19, was drafted by the Blues in the fifth round of the 2023 draft.
Subsequent moves to trade for Vasily Podkolzin and Ty Emberson while moving out Cody Ceci as part of the deal for the latter will afford the Oilers $8.171-million in cap space instead of having matched the offer sheets for Broberg and Holloway, while keeping Ceci on the roster.
Meanwhile, Bowman said he will be keeping his options open this summer when signing any of the remaining free agents without contracts or through additional trades.
“Nothing is off the table at this point, it doesn’t do us any good to close any doors right now,” Bowman said Tuesday, as transcribed by the Daily Hive’s Preston Hodgkinson. “Part of my job is to look at the options we have, whether it’s through additional trades or free-agent players in the market. I intend to do that. I don’t know if that’s going to come to anything.”
Bowman added that the Oilers plan to open the season with Evander Kane on the opening roster, despite the winger facing a multi-month recovery from surgery to fix a sports hernia/hip ailment he played with much of last season.
This move will allow the Oilers to be under the salary cap while accruing cap space throughout the season. Should the Oilers place Kane on the long-term injured reserve at any point this season ahead of the trade deadline, the team will lose the ability to continue to do so.
With a 21-man roster including Kane, the team would have $946,000 in cap space, according to PuckPedia.
Reports surfaced Tuesday the Oilers tried to sign Broberg and Holloway to multi-year contracts, and multiple other NHL teams were prepared to tender an offer sheet to Broberg.
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.
