Prediction: the Edmonton Oilers will regret it if they move on from Philip Broberg before Paul Coffey makes the most of Broberg’s ability.
I get it that it might not be possible for the Oilers to match Broberg. Cap space might simply be too tight. For example, it’s been reported that Evander Kane is likely to get surgery and go on Long Term Injured Reserve, but until that happens it’s only likely and not a certainty.
It’s also the case that the Oilers may decide not to match on Broberg, or on fellow offer sheet mate Dylan Holloway, for any number of sensible reasons that fans have little or idea about. This is a multi-variable decision for the Oilers. We only know so much about what management knows.
For example what impact would matching or not matching have on future contract negotiations with other Oilers players? On dressing room morale? On key individual players and their impression of the organization? We can guess, but we don’t know.
All that said, given d-man coach Paul Coffey’s track record of improving the offensive play of every single Oilers d-man in his 94 games coaching the team in the 2023-24 regular season and 2024 playoffs, my hope is to see Broberg get a full dose of Coffey as his coach, two years of Coffey’s tutelage.
I see Coffey turning Broberg into no less than a Top 4 d-man, likely a Top 3 d-man and maybe a top-pairing d-man. Bouchard and Broberg did well as a third-pairing d-partnership for Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson in 2022-23. Why not them pair up on the top-pairing down the road, a dynamic, defensively-sound top-pairing to rival any in the league?
This will sound like a stretch, like fantasy even, to those of you who are more doubtful of Broberg’s track record and potential. There are many Oilers fans far less bullish on Broberg than I am.
And I could well be wrong about his potential. I’ve had high hopes for numerous young players in the past — Magnus Paajarvi, Ladi Smid, Nail Yakupov, Jesse Puljujarvi, Sam Gagner — and those players turned out to be somewhat or significantly less than I had hoped or expected. This could be another case of that.
My argument in favour of Broberg developing is based on four things: his talent stack of size, reach, mobility, defensive awareness; his strong play with Bouchard in 2022-23, in the AHL in 2023-24, and for the Oilers in the playoffs in 2024; Coffey having enough confidence in the kid to insert him into line-up over Vincent Desharnais in the pressure-backed Conference Finals this year; and Coffey’s track record for building up the offensive confidence and performance of every Oilers d-man he worked with this year.
The D-man Whisperer
The first three points have been much discussed so in this post I’ll dig into the last matter.
Not every Oilers d-man improved overall under Coffey. The play of former top-pairing d-men Cody Ceci and especially Darnell Nurse dropped off.
In fact, things are so dire with Nurse that I see it as just 70-30 odds that he’ll recover his technique and confidence and play solid two-way defence in a Top 4 role next season. Such 70-30 odds might sound good to you, but consider when Nurse signed he was expected to be Edmonton’s best d-man for years to come. His 70-30 odds of success in a Top 4 role are the same now as I’d give to Broberg coming through this coming year. Both have risk attached to them, which is normal for a younger player, but not what you’d expect of a heralded veteran player in his prime. Nurse’s odds should be 95-5, not 70-30. But here we are.
From the chart below you will see that every single d-man made a higher rate of plays to create Grade A shots under coaches Kris Knoblauch and Paul Coffey in 2023-24 than they did under the previous coaching regime of Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson in the 2022-23 regular season and playoffs and the first 13 games of 2023-24.
As a group, overall, in terms of their two-way play, the d-men on average did significantly better under Coffey than they did under Manson.
At the Cult of Hockey, we do video review of all Grade A shots to determine which players have made significant contributions to Grade A shots for, and which players make significant mistakes on Grade A shots against. We’ve been doing this work since 2010-11.
When it comes to making mistakes on Grade A shots, it’s a mixed bag when we compare the Oilers d-men under Coffey as opposed to under Manson. Bouchard and Ekholm made a significantly lower rate of mistakes under Coffey, while Nurse made alarmingly more under Coffey. Kulak made about the same under both coaches, with Ceci, Desharnais and Broberg making a higher rate under Coffey.
On major contributions to Grade A shots for, Bouchard shot up like a rocket under Coffey, with Ekholm and Kulak doing better, and Nurse, Ceci and Desharnais doing a wee bit better. But all of them did at least a bit better.
Broberg had a good run of two-way play under Manson in 2022-23, but was most impressive with his solid play in the 2024 playoffs under Coffey.
He only played 43 regular season even strength minutes under Coffey in 2023-24. I would like to see him play 1200 this coming year so we can get a full sense of how far he can stretch his game with Coffey guiding him along.
I’m also hopeful that Coffey can figure out a way to work his wonders with Nurse. That could well be the most significant matter for the Oilers this and in coming years. For the Oilers to succeed, Nurse has to return the level of play that earned him his big contract, if not improve upon that.
I hope to see Nurse come around, just like I hope to see the Oilers match on Broberg, giving the young d-man an opportunity to get the full benefit of learning from the second best attacking d-man in NHL history.
If you’ve ever seen Broberg wheel with the puck, you’ll know the potential that is there for him as an attacker.
If we miss out on that, we’ll be missing out on something special, I believe.
How do you see it?
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At the Cult of Hockey
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