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.