It’s been quite the year for Philip Broberg.
The eighth-overall selection from the 2019 NHL Draft spent most of last season playing in the American Hockey League before being thrown into the deep end during the Western Conference Final in the spring. He capitalized on the opportunity and completely changed the trajectory of his career.
With the Oilers down 2-1 in their series with the Dallas Stars, head coach Kris Knoblauch replaced Cody Ceci with Broberg on the second defensive pairing alongside Darnell Nurse. Edmonton won the next three games to knock out the Stars and Broberg scored his first goal with the Oilers in 2023-24 during a massive road win in Game 5.
The Nurse and Broberg pairing remained intact for much of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers and they posted much better results than the Nurse and Ceci pairing did earlier in the playoffs. Over 170 even-strength minutes together, Nurse and Ceci were outscored 12-to-5. Meanwhile, Nurse and Broberg played 66 even-strength minutes together and outscored their opponents 4-to-2.
Broberg’s entry-level contract came to an end in the summer and the Oilers didn’t have any urgency to get him signed. The young defender wound up inking an offer sheet with the St. Louis Blues for two years and $4,580,917 annually, which was much higher than what the Oilers were expecting to pay. They opted not to match and received a second-round draft pick as compensation.
The move has worked out very well for Broberg and the Blues thus far. Through the first few weeks of the season, Broberg is second on St. Louis in scoring with seven points in eight games. He’s logging an average of 19:58 per game, which is much more than the 12:24 he averaged over 81 regular-season games in Edmonton across three seasons.
Earlier this week, Broberg appeared as a guest on the 32 Thoughts Podcast with Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas and talked about how he was ready for a new opportunity.
“I’m glad it happened,” Broberg said about the offer sheet. “I had a good time in Edmonton. I enjoyed it. But I think I was ready for a new chapter.”
Broberg also noted that he was buried on the left side of the blueline depth chart in Edmonton behind a few veteran players. He had to move to the right side in order to get more minutes with the Oilers and now he’s playing a top-four role with the Blues on his natural left side.
“They have a very good D-core in Edmonton. You have [Mattias] Ekholm, great player. [Darnell] Nurse, also a very good player, and [Brett] Kulak is the same. I had to play a lot on my off side. I’ve done that a lot in Sweden before, so I’m used to it, but it’s different playing the right side on the small ice surface.”
The Blues came into the 2024-25 season looking to end a two-year playoff drought and they’re off to a solid start with a 5-3-0 record. Edmonton will get their first look at Broberg as a member of the Blues on December 7 when the Oilers host St. Louis for the first of three meetings between the two teams this season.
