The St. Louis Blues have flipped the Edmonton Oilers’ offseason on its head, tendering offer sheets to restricted free agents Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg.
Offer sheet terms by #stlblues:
Philip Broberg: 2 years x $4,580,917
Dylan Holloway: 2 years x $2,290,457
Compensation due is a third-round pick for Holloway and a second-round pick for Broberg.
One dollar more on AAV for each player would have bumped up compensation.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) August 13, 2024
According to Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli, Broberg’s offer sheet is a two-year deal worth $4,580,917, while Holloway’s comes in at two years and $2,290,457.
The Oilers will have seven days to exercise their right of first refusal on each player, either matching or declining to, putting general manager Stan Bowman in a challenging spot early in his time with the team. If the team declines to match the offer sheets, the Oilers would receive a second-round pick for Broberg and a third-round pick for Holloway, Seravalli added.
In order for the Blues to tender the offer sheets, they made a trade early Tuesday with the Pittsburgh Penguins, re-acquiring their second-round pick in 2025 and acquiring Pittsburgh’s fifth-round pick in 2026, sending back their second-round pick in 2026 and the Senators’ third-round pick in 2025.
In a statement, the Blues said they “will have no further comment until the Oilers have made their decision as to whether to match the terms of either offer or accept the commensurate compensation.”
Salary cap resource site PuckPedia has the Oilers as one of few teams in the league who are above the NHL’s upper salary limit, currently sitting $354,167 over the salary cap. In order for the Oilers to match one, or both, the club will need to find a way to move out significant salary from their roster and fast.
In early July, Seravalli theorized about another team signing Broberg to an offer sheet, highlighting how Broberg has previously been unhappy in Edmonton, and that there would be little chance the Oilers could match the offer sheet. While that may be true, there are ways for the Oilers to get out of the situation unscathed, as I examined in a July article detailing the salary cap implications of an offer sheet for Broberg.
630 CHED’s Bob Stauffer reported Monday that forward Evander Kane would likely require surgery for a sports hernia/hip injury he suffered last season, impacting his regular season and playoff play, and that his being placed on the long-term injured reserve was likely. Kane landing there would free up $5.125-million in salary cap space for the Oilers, giving them the required room to match the offer sheet for Broberg.
The caveat is that the Oilers would need to know, with 100 percent certainty, that Kane’s injury would keep him on the LTIR throughout the entirety of the regular season, or that the team could find a trade partner to acquire the winger when his full no-movement clause turns into a 16-team approved trade list on March 1st, 2025.
When it comes to retaining Holloway, the Oilers would need to find a way to trade one of Cody Ceci or Brett Kulak. Ceci has one year left on a deal paying him $3.25-million, while Kulak has two years left on a deal paying him $2.75-million.
No matter how you cut it, the offer sheets are a significant move from the Blues and the Oilers now have found themselves with their backs up against the wall.
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.
