Pound for pound, the city of Edmonton and its surrounding cities have produced some of the best hockey players the world has ever seen.

In fact, according to Quant Hockey, Edmonton has produced 208 players who have accumulated 22,610 points — the third-most of any city in the world. Not bad.

There are always the players who came through Edmonton and found success elsewhere, like two members of the St. Louis Blues, Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, who, on Thursday, were officially named to the team’s leadership group as assistant captains.

The pair have fit in well since they joined the Blues by way of offer sheet two years ago. Holloway has appeared in 136 games, scoring 46 goals and 114 points — the third-most of any Blues player over that stretch. Broberg, meanwhile, has racked up 14 goals and 63 points in 149 games, sitting third in points among defencemen, with this year marking his second wearing an ‘A’.

While Robert Thomas, who will be the 25th captain in Blues history, doesn’t exactly have any links to Edmonton — beyond somebody in the city maybe sharing his name — the rest of the leadership does.

Defenceman Colton Parayko, who hails from this scribe’s hometown of St. Albert, will wear an ‘A’ for the seventh straight season. He grew up playing minor hockey in St. Albert, before joining the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Fort McMurray Oil Barons, where has was drafted out of in the third round of the 2013 draft.

The final assistant, Jake Neighbours, wears an ‘A’ for the second straight year. Despite hailing from Airdrie, Alta., Neighbours played his WHL seasons for the Edmonton Oil Kings, winning a championship in 2022, scoring 60 goals and 176 points in 171 games.

“Leadership is a group thing, a group dynamic,” said Blues general manager Alex Steen of the group. “They have to lean on each other. Everybody brings their traits to the table, and when you combine those together, you grow a lot of strength from within.

“We’re not looking for Robert to be anything other than himself, and I think the more of that kind of strength that unites inside that locker room with the— and the bonds that are created, that sort of automatically comes out in the guys.”

The Blues will visit the Edmonton Oilers twice this year, first on Feb. 12, 2027, and a month later on March 18.

Zach Laing is Daily Faceoff Edmonton’s managing editor and The Nation Network’s news director. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.

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