Central Notes: Holloway, Kapanen, Makar, Novak, Sissons, Marchment, Vlasic
In an impressive feat, St. Louis Blues’ forward Dylan Holloway will return to the lineup tonight after leaving the team’s most recent game after taking a puck to the neck (X Link). He left the game on a stretcher and was taken to an emergency department following the incident.
He’s been a solid addition to the Blues this season, as he’s off to the best scoring pace of his career to start the season. Four goals and six points in 13 games don’t necessarily jump off the page but considering he’s only managed nine points in 2022-23 and 2023-24, it’s a good improvement.
Unfortunately for St. Louis, the team will still be without forward Kasperi Kapanen tonight. Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic reported the projected lineup for tonight’s game and it didn’t include Kapanan meaning he’s likely still recovering from his upper-body injury.
Other Central notes:
- Marc Moser of the Colorado Avalanche originally reported earlier that defenseman Cale Makar would be a game-time decision for the team’s contest tonight. As it turns out, Makar is expected to play in tonight’s action. Makar left during the second period of the team’s recent game against the Seattle Kraken but returned for less than a minute in the third period. He’s been the team’s best and arguably the league’s best player this season with five goals and 23 points in 13 games.
- The Nashville Predators are without a few middle-six forwards tonight as the team announced Thomas Novak is considered day-to-day with an upper-body injury and Colton Sissons has a similar injury designation. The news will inevitably hurt the Predators in one of their least productive areas as their 2.38 GF/G currently ranks 27th in the NHL.
- Brien Rea of Victory+ reports that Dallas Stars’ forward Mason Marchment is considered day-to-day with an undisclosed injury. This means that Marchment won’t be in the lineup tonight but could make his return this weekend against the Winnipeg Jets. He’s gotten off to a decent start on the year with two goals and eight points in 11 games.
- Chicago Blackhawks’ defenseman Alex Vlasic had an impressive defensive season last year with a 90.6% on-ice save percentage in all situations on a basement-dwelling Blackhawks roster. Now that he’s recorded seven assists in 14 games this year, Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus of The Athletic share that Vlasic is now getting outside consideration for Team USA’s roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off. He played internationally for the United States this past summer recording two assists in eight games in the 2024 IIHF World Championships.
Dylan Holloway Not Expected To Miss Time After Neck Injury
Nov. 6: While Holloway didn’t skate today, he’s been discharged from the hospital and told reporters he intends to play against Utah tomorrow (via Andy Strickland of FanDuel Sports Network Midwest). He relayed that doctors barred him from activity for 24 hours after the injury but made no determination on his status past that. Holloway added that the puck struck him in the Vagus nerve, a key part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which caused him to become lightheaded (per Matthew DeFranks of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
Nov. 5: St. Louis Blues forward Dylan Holloway suffered a scary injury tonight in a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning and left on a stretcher (as per Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic). Holloway was hit in the neck area in the first period of the game when a Nick Paul shot appeared to be deflected directly up and into Holloway.
Initially, there was no cause for concern as Holloway joined teammate Jordan Kyrou on an offensive rush into the Lightning zone. The Blues didn’t score on the play but maintained possession for a moment before Holloway completed his shift and went back to the Blues bench. On his return to the bench, Holloway appeared to be uncomfortable as he moved his head from side to side and took a seat on the bench. A few minutes later, Blues personnel and players began to call over medics while the team’s athletic trainer propped up Holloway’s head. He was put on a stretcher and wheeled back into the Blues dressing room.
The first period was called with 1:11 remaining on the clock as both teams exited the bench area.
In the second period, St. Louis public address announcer Tom Calhoun told those in attendance at Enterprise Center that Holloway was alert and stable and was on his way to the hospital for further monitoring.
Blues In Rare Position To Promote Multiple Prospects
The St. Louis Blues are in a bit of a funk. They’ve missed each of the last two postseasons – only the fourth time in the team’s 57-year history that they’ve missed consecutive playoffs – but are still being elevated by the next-level talent of players like Pavel Buchnevich, Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, and Jordan Binnington. That’s kept the team from falling completely into the NHL’s basement, but their core is still aging rapidly. It seems the clock is ticking in St. Louis – as the Blues find themselves in urgent need of a surge in young talent to keep the lineup from falling into a rebuild.
Unfortunately, promoting young players hasn’t been much of a hallmark of recent Blues hockey. Only two teenagers – Thomas and Robby Fabbri – have played meaningful minutes in St. Louis since 2010, and still, both players faced third-line roles and plenty of scrutiny over their ice time. But they each found ways to produce, scoring 33 and 37 points in their rookie seasons respectively, and both eventually working onto St. Louis’ top line. That was short-lived for Fabbri, but the duo’s success nonetheless showed the payoff of giving top prospects NHL minutes.
The Blues have more recently seen those same patterns with 21-year-old Jake Neighbours, who worked up to an impressive 27 goals and 38 points in 77 games this season. It was Neighbours’ first full year in the NHL – though he entered with 52 games of prior experience – and he walked out the tail end of it with a firm grasp on a second-line role. Joel Hofer, 24, made a similar climb to prominence this year, appearing in 30 games and matching the .913 of starter Binnington – having graduated from two proud seasons as the AHL starter.
It’s continued evidence of young players finding success in NHL minutes – spelling tons of excitement for a Blues team preparing to host Dalibor Dvorsky, Zachary Bolduc, and Zach Dean at training camp. The latter two each received their NHL debuts last Spring, with Bolduc even formalizing his rookie season with 25 games played. But Bolduc managed just nine points, while Dean went scoreless in nine games. Their quiet scoring prevailed in the minors leagues as well, but both Bolduc and Dean took big strides in improving their ability to match pro pace. Meanwhile, Dvorsky was tearing up the OHL, recording 45 goals and 88 points in just 52 games. He looked like a pro among amateurs, likely thanks to the 38 games he played in Sweden’s HockeyAllsvenskan in 2022-23.
All three forwards are capable of a jump to the top flight, with the sturdy frames of Bolduc and Dvorsky looking especially mature. That’s great news, as St. Louis sits with, perhaps, their most uncertain bottom-six since the early-2000s. It’s a hodge-podge group, where Alexey Toropchenko stands as the only confident inclusion. Joining him will be a mix of quiet Blues veterans – like Oskar Sundqvist, Nathan Walker, and Kasperi Kapanen – and new acquisitions – like Radek Faksa, Mathieu Joseph, and Alexandre Texier. That’s plenty of manpower to round out a bottom-six, but none of those options would stand as particularly daunting against a young prospect who impresses out of camp.
Making things more exciting is St. Louis’ win of the sweepstakes for Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg. They shelled out $6.87MM in offer sheets to bring in the duo, but now add two more exciting young players into their mix of potential breakout names. Holloway is the more experienced of the two, having played in 89 games across the last two seasons. He’s only scored 18 points, split evenly, in those appearances, but looked to have a bit more momentum when he put up nine points in 25 games during the most recent postseason. Holloway has shown he’s capable of being productive with a pro role, scoring 26 points in 30 career AHL games, and should get a chance to quickly earn a prominent role on St. Louis’ lineup. Broberg’s story is largely the same – low-scoring through roughly a season’s worth of NHL appearances (13 points in 81 games) but encouraging minor-league production (65 points in 87 games) and a chance to quickly earn a major role.
That gives St. Louis the rare mix of multiple U23 prospects vying for NHL ice time, and the lineup spots to truly accommodate multiple rookies. It’s been six seasons since the Blues iced carried multiple U23 players on their everyday roster (2017-18, Robert Thomas and Vince Dunn) – but the stars are aligning, making now a better time than ever for St. Louis to fully embrace their burgeoning top prospects. If and how the quintet of Dvorsky, Bolduc, Dean, Holloway, and Broberg are able to earn out NHL roles will stand as the most prophetic question as the Blues look to finally return to the postseason.
West Notes: Henrique, Silovs, Holloway
While Adam Henrique ultimately decided to stay in Edmonton, he turned down at least one pricier offer to do so. Postmedia’s Kurt Leavins relays that the Jets offered the veteran a two-year, $7MM deal; he ultimately took two years and $6MM to stay with the Oilers. With Edmonton still trying to add to their roster on the trade front, it’s fair to say that extra half-million in flexibility that Henrique left on the table will come in handy. Winnipeg, meanwhile, didn’t fare well in trying to replace Sean Monahan and the fact they made a higher-money offer to Henrique suggests that they’re likely to be keeping an eye on the center market on the trade front in the coming weeks to see if someone becomes available.
Elsewhere out West:
- With Thatcher Demko’s availability for the start of the season in some question, the news that backup Arturs Silovs wouldn’t play in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament due to injury drew some extra attention. However, in an interview with Delfi, Latvia’s goalie coach Arturs Irbe noted the injury was sustained from overtraining and while he took time off a couple of times to recover, it was decided that they’d opt to be cautious and hold him out. At this point, it appears that Silovs will be ready to go for training camp for the Canucks.
- In an appearance on the Hockey Sense Show (video link), Blues winger Dylan Holloway acknowledged that his camp knew about the offer sheet coming before any true negotiations with the Oilers were held. Even before it was signed, the 22-year-old hoped to use it as a pressure point to kickstart discussions with Edmonton but those talks never came about. Holloway indicated that his asking price wasn’t particularly high but evidently, the Oilers weren’t interested in working on a deal at the time. He signed a two-year deal with St. Louis that carries a cap hit just above $2.29MM with Edmonton receiving a compensatory third-round pick in return.
West Notes: Oilers, Ceci, Binnington
The Edmonton Oilers’ decision to let Philip Broberg go and to trade Cody Ceci has opened up a hole in their top four that Josh Wegman of The Score believes should be filled via trade before the NHL trade deadline. This week, the Oilers have been checking in on multiple veteran defensemen who remain free agents, but Wegman believes they will seek a better solution before the playoffs.
Wegman lists Marcus Pettersson, Jakob Chychrun, and Ivan Provorov as potential targets as all three men are pending unrestricted free agents. He also believes that the Oilers could look for a longer-term solution and seek a player with some years left on their contract such as Mike Matheson, Connor Murphy, or Radko Gudas. The Oilers have been linked to former Oilers Tyson Barrie and Justin Schultz this week, as well as former Bruins defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk. While all of those defensemen have had solid NHL careers, they are not great options for a Stanley Cup-contending team looking to round out their second defensive pairing.
In other Western Conference notes:
- Jim Matheson of The Edmonton Journal doesn’t believe that defenseman Cody Ceci will remain in a San Jose Sharks uniform for very long. The recently traded defenseman has one year left on his current contract with a cap hit of $3.25MM and will likely be dealt to a contending team before next year’s NHL trade deadline. Ceci has never been an analytics darling and probably shouldn’t be a top-four defenseman on a contending team, but as a bottom-pairing defender, he could bring a lot of value to a team looking to add some experience to the backend of their lineup.
- St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington was reportedly very happy with the recent moves made by Blues general manager Doug Armstrong (as per Mike Zeisberger of NHL.com). Binnington told Zeisberger that the successful offer sheets to Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg showed current Blues players that Armstrong had faith in the group, which will motivate the club as they head into training camp. Binnington added that the additions to the Blues should help make the team more competitive next season as they will be a faster group that is harder for opponents to play against.
Notes From The Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway Offer Sheet Fall-Out
The Oilers were likely to lose Philip Broberg one way or another this month. The Blues were one of three teams preparing an offer sheet for the defenseman, Andy Strickland of Bally Sports Midwest reports.
It’s unclear if the two other offers were officially presented to Broberg’s camp. But, as a reminder, unsigned RFAs have no obligation to sign an offer sheet if they’re presented with one.
That means the Blues weren’t just competing with the Oilers’ offer to retain Broberg, which Strickland adds was likely a two-year deal with a $1.1MM average annual value, far less than the $4.58MM AAV at which they acquired him. They were competing with two other teams, partially explaining their inflated offer to the 2019 eighth-overall pick. Their offer to Broberg was also the maximum they could sign him for without being required to part with their 2025 first-round pick as compensation to Edmonton.
It’s also fair to infer that Broberg’s camp had an indication for some time that there was offer sheet interest. The deal from the Oilers was much closer to fair market value for a defender coming off a season spent mainly in the minors and less than an entire season’s worth of NHL experience under his belt.
Edmonton’s offer to Dylan Holloway was a three-year deal worth $1.05MM, per Strickland. That’s a much smaller gap to bridge to the two-year, $2.29MM AAV pact he signed with St. Louis. Still, a deal over the $2MM AAV threshold for a player with fewer than 10 NHL goals across nearly 90 games is challenging for a cap-strapped contender, regardless of his ceiling.
They’ve gone with a slightly older but cheaper player with a skillset to replace him by acquiring Vasily Podkolzin, who was selected two picks after Broberg in 2019, from the Canucks. His AAV is $1MM for the next two seasons, mirroring their offer to Holloway more closely.
Sacrificing short-term overpaid but high-ceiling young talent came to maintain in-season salary cap flexibility, posits Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. After declining to match the offer sheets, the Oilers have enough projected cap space to field a 22-player opening night roster without utilizing long-term injured reserve, allowing them to accumulate cap space throughout the season.
That will give general manager Stan Bowman free reign to add talent at the trade deadline as the Oilers attempt to make their second Stanley Cup Final in as many years. Per PuckPedia, maintaining their roughly $946K in season-opening cap space will snowball into $4.4MM available to spend on March 6.
Oilers Decline To Match Offer Sheets For Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway
The Oilers have let Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway head to the Blues today by declining to match the offer sheets they signed last week, the team announced.
As such, Broberg and Holloway will enter into valid two-year contracts with the Blues. Broberg’s deal has a total value of $9.16MM and a $4.58MM cap hit, while Holloway’s has a total value of $4.58MM and a $2.29MM cap hit. Upon expiry in 2026, each will become restricted free agents with arbitration rights.
Edmonton will receive the Blues’ 2025 second and third-round picks as compensation for the Broberg and Holloway offers. St. Louis had previously traded away next year’s second-rounder but re-acquired it from the Penguins minutes before announcing the offer sheets last week.
Broberg, 23, was the eighth overall pick in the 2019 draft after dominating that year’s U18 World Championship, being named the tournament’s best defenseman, an All-Star, and a top-three player on the team while winning a gold medal with Sweden. Unfortunately, he hasn’t yet been able to convert that draft pedigree into a full-time NHL role. He’s bounced between the Oilers and their AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, limiting Edmonton’s willingness to give him a deal with a seven-figure AAV, let alone one in the $4MM range.
2023-24 marked a regression for Broberg, who got just 12 regular-season appearances after making a career-high 46 the season before. The left-shot averaged 11:37 per game, his shortest leash since making his NHL debut three years ago, and had two assists with a -3 rating. However, he was able to unlock a new gear in the minors. He’d been a two-way force with the Condors since arriving in North America in 2021 but took things to a new level last season with five goals, 33 assists, 38 points, and a +11 rating in 49 games. His 0.78 points per game were fourth in the league among defenders with at least 15 games played.
Broberg entered restricted free agency for the first time on a bit of a high note after re-entering the Oilers lineup during the tail end of their run to the Stanley Cup Final. He got into 10 games in May and June, getting top-four spot duty alongside Darnell Nurse and averaging 15:48 per game. He seemed to respond well, posting three points and a +8 rating, but his shot attempt metrics were quite poor, and his rating has more to do with an artificially high .969 SV% from Oilers netminder Stuart Skinner while Broberg was on the ice. The eye test indicated he was playing with more confidence, though, despite being bumped to his weak side playing with Nurse.
Holloway is a similar story. The 6’1″ forward, who turns 23 next month, was the No. 14 overall pick a year after Broberg and, had he been eight days older, would have been eligible for the 2022 draft instead. In his post-draft season, Holloway enjoyed a standout sophomore campaign at the University of Wisconsin, where he had 35 points in just 23 games and was named to the Big 10 conference’s First All-Star Team and was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award for the top collegiate player. However, like his Swedish counterpart, Holloway has failed to avoid AHL assignments through each of his three professional seasons thus far.
However, Holloway has gotten more runway at the NHL level, making 89 appearances combined over the past two campaigns. He’s likely a safer bet to be an impact piece for St. Louis this season despite his contract being worth half as much as Broberg’s. With Edmonton’s world-beating forward depth, there have been limited opportunities for Holloway to land a spot higher up in the lineup, limiting his usage to 10:21 per game. That’s resulted in a relatively meager career offensive output of nine goals and 18 points, 0.20 per game.
Like Broberg, Holloway’s minor-league showings have been strong, most recently scoring 10 goals and six assists in 18 games with the Condors last season. But with the pending move to the Blues, both players’ days of seeing AHL ice are over. The Blues’ entire left defense depth chart becomes a tossup with Broberg, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Scott Perunovich and veterans Nick Leddy and Ryan Suter, neither of whom have any set roles entering the season. There’s also the matter of Torey Krug, who could miss the entire 2024-25 season if he undergoes surgery to correct pre-arthritic conditions in his left ankle. If he’s out, there’s a chance for Broberg to earn a top-four job come opening night with a strong training camp.
Likewise, the Blues’ below-average forward depth gives Holloway a fighting chance at claiming a top-nine role when the Blues kick off the NHL’s Opening Night festivities against the Kraken on Oct. 8. There are options galore for the Blues to utilize Holloway, who can play both left-wing and center, in a wide-open competition with depth players like Mathieu Joseph, Kasperi Kapanen and Alexandre Texier.
It’s all part of a clear directive from St. Louis general manager Doug Armstrong to get younger and faster this summer, picking up more cost-effective depth pieces like Joseph and Texier to help boost a team with a roster now barely recognizable from its 2019 Stanley Cup win.
The Blues will be down to just $470K in projected cap space after taking on the contracts, but that’s assuming a roster size of two players over the 23-man limit. If they sent a pair of league-minimum contracts down to the minors, they’ll begin the season with just over $2MM in space.
After letting both players walk, the Oilers’ pathway to cap compliance is now clear. It’ll be a tight fit, but they have a few options to submit a cap-compliant opening night roster with at least one healthy extra, as outlined by PuckPedia. On the ice, they went out and acquired cheaper replacements for Broberg and Holloway on the trade market by picking up Ty Emberson from the Sharks and Vasily Podkolzin from the Canucks, but said goodbye to top-four fixture Cody Ceci and his $3.25MM cap hit in the process.
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet was first to report that the Oilers would not be matching the offer sheets.
Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Oilers Pathway Toward Cap Compliancy
If their cap struggles weren’t already bad enough this summer, the Edmonton Oilers were struck a significant blow last week when the St. Louis Blues signed defenseman Philip Broberg to a two-year, $9.16MM offer sheet and forward Dylan Holloway to a two-year, $4.58MM offer sheet. Oilers’ general manager Stan Bowman has until tomorrow to match both or either respective offer but could allow both to walk and receive draft compensation in return.
PuckPedia gave a solid breakdown of how Edmonton could find its way back to salary cap compliance after the separate trades that brought Vasily Podkolzin to Alberta and sent Cody Ceci to the San Jose Sharks. The salary cap website asserts that if the Oilers place Evander Kane on long-term injured reserve to start the year, send down Troy Stecher and Derek Ryan, and call up prospect Matt Savoie to the NHL, they will be compliant to start the 2024-25 NHL season if they choose to match both offer sheets.
All things considered — this is a decent scenario for Edmonton. Savoie gives the team a low-cost option to plug into the top six and allows the team some flexibility with newcomers Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson on the wing. By moving either Skinner or Arvidsson down to the third line, Holloway could play the wing on the team’s fourth line while moving Mattias Janmark to fourth-line center in this scenario.
The team would still have seven available defensemen to choose from to start the year and Stecher likely would have been light on playing time regardless. Josh Brown and Ty Emberson could split time based on matchups leaving Edmonton’s only glaring hole at the fourth-line center position.
Edmonton is not necessarily out of the woods just yet as it’s uncertain when Kane will ultimately return from his offseason surgery. It’s expected he will be placed on LTIR to begin the season which will keep him out of the lineup for the first 10 games and 24 days of the 2024-25 NHL season. Once the season begins, however, the Oilers will again be in a situation where tough decisions must be made. The Oilers could still allow both players to walk giving them just over $6MM to start the year after placing Kane on LTIR.
It will be interesting to see how aggressive GM Bowman is in bringing back two pieces that haven’t had much opportunity with the organization up to this point. All in all, even with clearing Ceci’s salary and having a clear pathway toward cap compliance to start the year — it will take some time for Edmonton to exit this precarious scenario.
Oilers Trade Cody Ceci, Pick for Ty Emberson
The Edmonton Oilers have traded defenseman Cody Ceci and a 2025 third-round pick to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for defenseman Ty Emberson. The deal was initially reported by Sportsnet’s Mark Spector, who adds that no salary cap was retained. Spector mentions that moving Ceci’s $3.25MM cap hit could give Edmonton enough space to retain defenseman Philip Broberg while forward Dylan Holloway could be headed to the St. Louis Blues. Both players recently signed two-year offer sheets with the Blues – Broberg’s totaling $9.16MM in salary and Holloway’s totaling $4.58MM.
The two restricted free agents are in similar spots in their careers – yet to vindicate their first-round precedent, though still carving out routine roles in Edmonton’s lineup. They were utilized similarly, averaging roughly 11:30 in ice time this season, though Holloway played 38 games to Broberg’s 12. Retaining both players would cost the Oilers $6.87MM in cap hit – a tough bill to pay for an Oilers team that was already $8.225MM over the cap ceiling. It seems the team is opting to hold onto the defenseman, though it will cost them near-800-game veteran Cody Ceci.
Despite routinely receiving criticism, Ceci was an anchor of Edmonton’s top-four last season, averaging 20 minutes of total ice time and more penalty-kill time than any other Oiler. He ended the year with five goals and 25 points in 79 games this season, adding five points in 24 playoff games – where he notoriously partnered with Darnell Nurse for some of the best and worst moments of the postseason. After three years in Edmonton, Ceci will move to his fifth NHL franchise in this trade. He’ll seemingly – and perhaps surprisingly – become San Jose’s top right defenseman, joining a room occupied by Jan Rutta and Matt Benning. He’ll be the second-most experienced on the blue-line, though leader Marc-Edouard Vlasic – who’s just four games shy of 1,300 career games, though he became a routine healthy scratch last season.
Ceci’s departure opens a big hole in the Oilers’ blue line, which could finally yield the opportunity that Broberg’s been waiting for. He’s only averaged 12:42 in ice time through 81 career games and hasn’t played over 19 minutes in a single game since November of 2021. Broberg has yielded 13 career points in the limited role, though stepping into top-four minutes could be enough to kick the former top-10 pick into high gear.
That could cost them winger Holloway, who’s scored 18 career points – and added seven in 25 games this postseason. Holloway was drafted 14th overall in the 2020 NHL Draft, selected after a strong freshman year at the University of Wisconsin, where he totaled 52 points in 58 games over two years in Wisconsin before turning pro in 2021. He has since bounced between the NHL and AHL lineups, showing flashes of promise as a hefty play-driver but never finding his spark. His 6-foot-1, 206-pound frame is just 10 pounds heavier than winger Vasily Podkolzin, who Edmonton acquired for a 2025 third-round pick earlier today. Podkolzin fits into the same conversation as Holloway and Broberg – a former top draft pick struggling to show what he can do at the top level. The size similarities and Podkolzin’s cheap $1MM cap hit seem to back the idea that Holloway could be headed to St. Louis – though nothing is official yet.
Regardless of their decision with Broberg and Holloway, Edmonton emerges from this swap with young defender Ty Emberson, who played through his first 30 NHL games last season, scoring 10 points and showing value as a shutdown defender on a struggling San Jose roster. But a lower-body laceration suffered in February cut Emberson’s rookie year short, leaving Sharks fans guessing where his upside might fall.
Multiple teams have shown interest in Emberson at one point. He was initially drafted by the Arizona Coyotes ahead of a three-year tenure at the University of Wisconsin, where he managed 34 points in 101 games. Emberson turned pro with the Tuscon Roadrunners in 2020, getting a taste of tougher competition before a 2022 trade to the New York Rangers in exchange for Patrick Nemeth and draft picks in 2025 and 2026. New York signed Emberson to a one-year, league-minimum contract but placed him on waivers two months later. San Jose placed a claim as the fourth team on the priority list, ultimately pushing Emberson into his first NHL role. He’ll now move to Edmonton with the chance for even more growth as he battles Broberg and Nurse for ice time on the right-hand side.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
West Notes: Mercer, Rantanen, Oilers
The Wild have invited undrafted free agent goalie Riley Mercer to next month’s rookie camp, reports Mike Morreale of NHL.com. Mercer, the younger brother of Devils RFA forward Dawson Mercer, was passed over in the 2022, 2023 and 2024 drafts but came into his own in his final season of junior hockey last year with the QMJHL’s Drummondville Voltigeurs.
The 20-year-old Newfoundland native took over as the Voltigeurs’ starter for the first time in 2023-24, posting a 2.83 GAA and .905 SV% with two shutouts and a 31-13-4 record in 49 appearances. But he erupted in the playoffs, taking over with a shining 1.89 GAA and .934 SV% in 19 games as Drummondville won the QMJHL championship.
Mercer, who stands at 6’2″ and 205 lbs, hasn’t inked a professional contract for this season. He’s technically eligible to return to the Voltigeurs for an overage season, but CHL clubs are limited to three overagers on their roster at any given time and tend not to use those slots on goaltenders.
An entry-level contract with the Wild out of rookie camp is impossible but unlikely. However, a decent showing could earn him a deal with their AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild, or their ECHL affiliate, the Iowa Heartlanders. It would be a tough numbers game, though, as the organization has seven goalies under contract across the three leagues already (five NHL deals, one AHL deal, and one ECHL deal).
More out of the Western Conference today:
- Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman chimed into the summer discourse today with a quick-hit edition of his “32 Thoughts” podcast, mentioning, among other topics, that there’s a strong sense around the league that the Avalanche and Mikko Rantanen won’t have any issues coming to terms on an extension. “You start to do your planning a year out,” Friedman said. “They’re starting to take Draisaitl off their boards because they think that’s going to get done in Edmonton, and I had some teams tell me they don’t have any reason to believe, right now, that Rantanen is going to be a hard one to get done either. We’ll see where that goes” (hat tip to Evan Rawal of Colorado Hockey Now). As things stand, Rantanen would be the consensus No. 2 player on the 2025 UFA market behind Draisaitl. The 27-year-old winger remained over the 100-point threshold in 2023-24, posting 42 goals and 62 assists in 80 games. An eight-year extension would feasibly eclipse the $11MM mark per year, a decent raise on his current $9.25MM AAV.
- The Oilers should match the Blues’ two-year, $4.58MM offer sheet for Dylan Holloway but let Philip Broberg walk for his two-year, $9.16MM offer, argues Shayna Goldman of The Athletic (subscription required). Among other reasons, the likelihood of Holloway being worth his $2.29MM cap hit this season is much higher than Broberg providing fair value for his $4.58MM price tag, especially for a pair of former first-rounders at similar spots in their development.