Blues Offer Sheet Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway
The Blues are tendering offer sheets to Oilers RFAs Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, the team announced (via Matthew DeFranks of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch). In a separate transaction, they’ve reacquired their own 2025 second-round pick from the Penguins to have the appropriate compensation should Edmonton not match one or both of the offer sheets.
St. Louis’ offer sheet for Broberg is a two-year, $9.16MM deal, while Holloway’s is a two-year, $4.58MM deal, per DeFranks. The deals carry AAVs of $4.58MM and $2.29MM, respectively.
Both are at the maximum of their respective categories in the offer sheet compensation thresholds, which the league updated this offseason. Should Edmonton fail to match, the Blues would owe the Oilers their 2025 third-round pick for Holloway and the aforementioned 2025 second-round pick for Broberg.
The preceding pick swap with the Penguins saw the Blues acquire Pittsburgh’s 2026 fifth-round pick and next year’s second-rounder, sending their 2026 second-round pick and the Senators’ 2025 third-round pick in return. St. Louis had sent its 2025 second-rounder to the Penguins in June to get Kevin Hayes‘ $3.57MM cap hit off the books, while they acquired Ottawa’s pick as compensation for taking on the final two seasons of Mathieu Joseph‘s contract at a $2.95MM cap hit.
New Oilers general manager Stan Bowman now has seven days to decide whether to match the offer sheets or accept the draft-pick compensation. But given Edmonton’s financial situation, matching the bloated short-term deals will be a tough ask.
The second year attached to both deals may be the deciding factor. Not only are the Oilers already over the salary cap today, paying out nearly $7MM in cap hits in 2025-26 for Broberg and Holloway would significantly inhibit their ability to sign pending UFA Leon Draisaitl to what will likely be the richest deal in franchise history.
But if the Oilers decide to match one or both the offer sheets, they wouldn’t need to make any corresponding transactions immediately. Edmonton is only roughly $350K over the $88MM salary cap, per PuckPedia, and teams can exceed that upper limit by up to 10% during the offseason. That’s enough wiggle room to add $6.87MM worth of Broberg and Holloway to the books, but they would need to shed more salary than previously anticipated to become cap-compliant by the time opening-night rosters are due.
Edmonton’s short-term crunch could be helped out by Evander Kane, who’s expected to need surgery and will likely start the season on long-term injured reserve. But if Kane and his $5.125MM cap hit aren’t expected to miss the entire season, they’ll still need space to activate him at some point.
On St. Louis’ end, it’s now clear why GM Doug Armstrong was intent on keeping his options open financially this summer, shedding some bad deals for slightly more cost-effective ones. The Blues have $7.34MM in projected cap space, per PuckPedia, ninth-most in the league. It’s enough to take on the AAVs for Broberg and Holloway without any corresponding moves, and they could end up with even more flexibility should defenseman Torey Krug require surgery to address pre-arthritic conditions in his left ankle. That would cost him the entire 2024-25 season and make him eligible for LTIR, allowing them to use his $6.5MM cap hit for relief.
Failing to match either would be a tough proposition for the Oilers, who selected Broberg eighth overall in 2019 and Holloway at 14th overall in 2020. Both are on their way to becoming everyday NHL contributors, with Holloway appearing in all 25 playoff games for Edmonton and Broberg pushing for more NHL minutes after excelling with the Oilers’ AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, last season.
Traded First-Round Picks For 2025 NHL Draft
Last updated 8/26/24, 8:25 a.m.
The 2025 NHL Draft may still be nearly a year away, but multiple teams have already traded away their first-round picks, and even more will change hands before the March 6, 2025 trade deadline.
This article will be used to monitor each team’s 2025 first-round pick, updating it as necessary throughout the year.
We’ve listed all 32 teams here, so even if a team hasn’t traded its first-round pick, that will be noted. We’ll also provide details on the protections for each traded pick, including what happens to the pick in 2026 if it doesn’t change hands in 2025.
Here’s the full breakdown of the status of each 2025 first-round pick:
Atlantic
- Boston Bruins: Own pick.
- Buffalo Sabres: Own pick.
- Detroit Red Wings: Own pick.
- Florida Panthers: Traded to Flames or Canadiens (top-10 protected).
- If this pick lands in its protected range, the Panthers would owe the Flames their 2026 first-round pick (unprotected).
- Flames/Panthers details are outlined below.
- Montreal Canadiens: Own pick.
- Ottawa Senators: Own pick.
- Tampa Bay Lightning: Traded to Predators (top-10 protected).
- If this pick lands in its protected range, the Lightning would owe the Predators their 2026 first-round pick (unprotected).
- Toronto Maple Leafs: Traded to Blackhawks (top-10 protected).
- If this pick lands in its protected range, the Maple Leafs would owe the Blackhawks their 2026 first-round pick (unprotected).
Metropolitan
- Carolina Hurricanes: Own pick.
- Columbus Blue Jackets: Own pick.
- New Jersey Devils: Traded to Flames (top-10 protected).
- If this pick lands in its protected range, the Devils would owe the Flames their 2026 first-round pick (unprotected).
- New York Islanders: Own pick.
- New York Rangers: Own pick.
- Philadelphia Flyers: Own pick.
- Pittsburgh Penguins: Own pick.
- Washington Capitals: Own pick.
Central
- Chicago Blackhawks: Own pick.
- Colorado Avalanche: Traded to Flyers (top-10 protected).
- If this pick lands in its protected range, the Avalanche would owe the Flyers their 2026 first-round pick (unprotected).
- Dallas Stars: Own pick.
- Minnesota Wild: Own pick.
- Nashville Predators: Own pick.
- St. Louis Blues: Own pick.
- Utah Hockey Club: Own pick.
- Winnipeg Jets: Own pick.
Pacific
- Anaheim Ducks: Own pick.
- Calgary Flames: Traded to Canadiens or own pick.
- Flames/Canadiens details are outlined below.
- Edmonton Oilers: Traded to Flyers (top-12 protected).
- If this pick lands in its protected range, the Oilers would owe the Flyers their 2026 first-round pick (unprotected).
- Los Angeles Kings: Own pick.
- San Jose Sharks: Own pick or traded to Predators.
- Details are outlined under the Golden Knights’ pick.
- Seattle Kraken: Own pick.
- Vancouver Canucks: Own pick.
- Vegas Golden Knights: Traded to Predators or Sharks. (unprotected).
- This pick was initially traded to the Sharks without protection. The Sharks later dealt this pick to the Predators, but San Jose can opt to retain Vegas’ pick and send their own 2025 first-rounder to Nashville if Vegas’ pick falls inside the top 10.
Details on Flames’ picks:
Remember all those complex conditions attached to the first-round pick the Flames sent to the Canadiens to take on the final season of Sean Monahan‘s contract in 2022? Those will come back to bite draft-watchers this season. A full explanation of all the possible conditions can be found in this write-up from two years ago, but we’ll outline them briefly here.
In 2025, the Flames control three first-rounders:
- Their own.
- The Panthers’ first-round pick (top-10 protected).
- The Devils’ first-round pick (top-10 protected).
Luckily for those trying to parse through the conditions of the trade, the Devils’ pick, which Calgary acquired in this offseason’s Jacob Markstrom trade, isn’t a factor here.
At the time of the Monahan deal, there were three possible scenarios to determine which first-round pick the Habs would receive. One of them can already be crossed off, as it involved the Canadiens opting to receive Calgary’s 2024 first-rounder if it fell between 20th and 32nd overall. It didn’t, so we moved on to the other scenarios.
With Calgary likely to be a bottom-feeder this season and Florida coming off a Stanley Cup championship, the most likely scenario is that the Flames’ first-rounder falls inside the top 10 and the Panthers’ does not. In that case, the Canadiens will receive Florida’s pick. The opposite would be true if the situation was reversed. If neither pick falls in the top 10, the Canadiens will receive the better of the two picks.
The write-up linked above details the third scenario, which involves both picks falling inside the top 10.
Information from PuckPedia was used in the creation of this post.