Oilers GM Stan Bowman says not matching the St. Louis Blues’ offer sheets on two of Edmonton’s brightest prospects — Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway — was all about pay and not play.
They simply weren’t forking over the $4.6 million AAV for Broberg, even if they could have maybe squeezed him in this coming season on the salary cap with the trade of Cody Ceci to San Jose.
Broberg would have made $700,000 more than Evan Bouchard, the Oilers’ best defenceman, which is crazy math.
They only had offered Broberg a contract in the $1.1-million range, befitting a kid with 81 regular-season games.
There is money that will be needed for Leon Draisaitl’s extension — starting at an AAV somewhere over $13 million — while Connor McDavid’s next contract comes due in 2026-27.
Holloway was offered a three-year deal at slightly more than $1 million AAV and the Blues’ $2.29 million was tough to stomach.
There were four doors the Oilers could have opened — and they chose Door No. 4.
They could have gone ahead and matched both, just Broberg or just Holloway. But they decided to pass on the first three for cap reasons.
“Not matching made the most sense for where we are today. This isn’t reflective of the players, at all, I want to be clear on that. I had no concerns. It came down to our short- and long-term viability with the salary cap,” Bowman said on a Zoom call, also reiterating that other NHL teams were on the phone right after the offer sheets to see if there were trade possibilities to ease the cap crunch.
“Offer sheets aren’t common and to have two is challenging, but my feeling was to just roll up my sleeves,” Bowman said. “Right now we have a challenge and puzzle to put together.”
Ceci and his $3.25 million went to the Sharks, along with a third-round sweetener (GM Mike Grier maybe could have grinded for a better pick), for 24-year-old right-shot defenceman Ty Emberson, who used to play for Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch on the New York Rangers farm team.
And they got Vasily Podkolzin, another first-round winger like Holloway, who couldn’t find regular work in Vancouver, for a measly fourth-rounder.
Since Game 7, they have lost team speed — outgoing are Warren Foegele (signed in L.A.) and Ryan McLeod (traded to Buffalo) to go with Holloway and Broberg (St. Louis) — and they are now without three of their top seven playoff defencemen with Ceci traded to San Jose, Vinny Desharnais signing in Vancouver and Broberg gone.
But …
“We’ve brought in additional young players, additional draft picks. This gives us more flexibility going forward as we face a challenging situation (money for Bouchard, Draisaitl and eventually McDavid),” Bowman said.
They are now $946,800 under the cap if you have a 21-man healthy roster and Evander Kane, give or take if he needs surgery on his sports hernia and goes on LTIR.
The second- and third-round picks they got for not matching on Broberg and Holloway could be trade chips, but the Oilers didn’t have a 2025 pick until the sixth round, so they may keep them.
“The young players we got, Podkolzin and Ty Emberson, haven’t established themselves as NHLers yet, but it’s important to have young players in your lineup (cheap money) and they bring a little bit more energy and excitement,” Bowman said. “Where our team is at present and in the future, salary cap room is imperative for us.”
Before the Blues’ offer sheets to Broberg and Holloway, the Oilers were $341,000 over the $85 million cap. It looked like they were trading Ceci to maybe keep Broberg, whose agent Darren Ferris said there were three teams investigating an offer sheet.
But no. Broberg is now a Blue — and probably not blue. He had asked for a trade over the winter.
“Darren Ferris made me prepared that this could happen. It’s been wild,” Broberg said while talking to Blues media.
Not matching on Broberg and Holloway gives the Oilers more cap space to work with, never a bad thing with the trade additions of Emberson and Podkolzin. Both are young, but Edmonton is still the oldest team in the league with an average age of 30.27.
The Oilers defence is in flux. Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm are the top pair, but they have to find a right-handed partner for Darnell Nurse (it could have been Broberg). It could be 494-game veteran Troy Stecher, last season’s trade-deadline pickup who needed surgery for a cyst on his ankle in the playoffs.
It would appear Emberson or former Arizona Coyotes tough guy Josh Brown, signed for three years at a $1-million AAV, could challenge to play with Brett Kulak on a third pair.
“We don’t have the same picture we did in Game 7 a couple of months ago. We have a lot of new players we feel can come in and fill a role and we want to give them a chance to pick up those minutes. Stecher didn’t get much chance late last season and we’ve got Emberson and Brown,” Bowman said.
Putting Kane on LTIR would kick the cap-space can down the road, but for how long until his $5.125 million goes back on the regular roster?
“This (medical situation) is between Evander and his doctors,” Bowman said. “We want to make sure Evander gets healthy, there’s options … rehab sometimes a player is able to return (after missing some early season time). Sometimes an injury requires surgery and the player is out for a longer part. It’s not black and white moving forward.”
Emberson, who was the right-shot partner to Mario Ferraro in San Jose, played only 30 games last season, but would have played more if he hadn’t suffered a fluke skate laceration in a game against Anaheim in late February. He was the Eastern Conference’s best defensive defenceman in Hartford when current Oilers coach Knoblauch had him.
“Kris was very complimentary,” Bowman said.
Podkolzin, 23, doesn’t play like Holloway. He’s not as fast, for sure. He’s more of a big-body, third-liner who works the boards. But he was a star as a junior, who got side-tracked in the KHL when he played a little for SKA St. Petersburg before coming to the Canucks.
“He’s got a strong pedigree and had a good rookie year in the NHL, but he’s been in the American League for the most part since then. We looked at his overall skill set. He’s got an ability to score, good shot, he’s a powerful, very strong. He’s a straight-line guy who can play a possession game in the offensive zone,” Bowman said.
Bowman had familiarity with Paul Fischer, 19, a 2023 Blues draft pick acquired in a Tuesday trade. He’s a defenceman starting his second year at Notre Dame.
“I’ve seen Paul play hundreds of games growing up in Chicago,” said Bowman, the former Blackhawks GM.