Offer sheets are rare in the NHL, so when a team finally dishes one out it tends to shake up the offseason landscape.
When a team sends out two at once to a team, it heats up an already spicy situation.
Only 10 offer sheets have been signed in the 20-year salary cap era. Eight of those 10 were between 2006 and 2013, and all but one of those were matched. But since then, the process has hit a snail’s pace. There have only been two offer sheets signed in the last nine offseasons. The first came back in 2019 when Montreal tried to poach Sebastian Aho from the Hurricanes. Carolina matched that and got their revenge three years later, with an offer sheet to (and ultimately an acquisition of) Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
Since then, it’s been mostly quiet on the offer sheet front despite a ton of restricted free-agent talent available over the past few summers.
Until Tuesday morning, when the St. Blues chose chaos with not one but two offer sheets for the Edmonton Oilers to ponder.
St. Louis tendered offer sheets to forward Dylan Holloway and defenseman Philip Broberg, leaving the Oilers with two questions: Can the team afford to match these two deals, and should they?
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Blues sign Oilers’ Broberg, Holloway to offer sheets
The Oilers do not have much cap flexibility. Between 13 forwards, six defenders, two goaltenders, and two buyout hits, Edmonton’s collective cap hit is around $88.3 million. Per CapWages, that’s $341,667 over the $88 million ceiling for the 2024-25 season without two key RFAs signed.
The Oilers will likely get some relief to start the season with Evander Kane and his $5.1 million cap hit headed for long-term injured relief. But Kane’s status is a wild card right now, and unless the plan is for him to miss the regular season and only be available for the playoffs, stashing him on LTIR to open the season is an incomplete solution.
Hearing there is a very good chance that the @EdmontonOilers Evander Kane won’t be ready for the start of the season…that he may require surgery…and is likely to be on LTIR to start the year
— Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) August 12, 2024
Even if Kane does go on LTIR for the entire season, it won’t be enough to cover the new deals for both Broberg and Holloway since Edmonton can’t restructure the proposed salaries. The Oilers have to match the Blues two-year offers worth $2,290,457 a year for Holloway and $4,580,917 for Broberg.
With Holloway, an offer sheet is something the Oilers should have anticipated. Unlike other available RFAs, he doesn’t require a splashy salary or compensation like Lucas Raymond might. At most, Holloway could have landed in the $2,290,458 – $4,580-917 tier that would have cost a second-round pick. The Blues offered him a salary that kept him one dollar below that, meaning the compensation is only a 2025 third-rounder.
On the surface, it may be pretty easy to shrug Holloway off. He’s a bottom-six forward who only put up nine points in 38 regular season games and didn’t make much of an offensive impact at five-on-five. But that isn’t what the Blues (or Oilers) would be betting on. These teams would bet on the potential of a 22-year-old hitting his stride at the NHL level and becoming a difference-maker, which he showed glimpses of down the stretch and into the playoffs.
With more reinforcements in the Oilers’ top-six this season, with offseason signings like Viktor Arvidsson, Holloway should have the support to round into form as a difference-making second-liner this year. And that’s something that Edmonton may want to prioritize since there isn’t a ton of young talent to lean on.
That’s why the Oilers should match the Blues offer for Holloway, even if it’s a bit higher than the projected costs. To extend in Edmonton at this point in the offseason, Evolving-Hockey forecasted a two-year deal worth an AAV of about $1.3 which is about $1 million more than the current offer. But that sub-$2.3 million AAV is below his projected market value for each of the next two seasons. So it’s a safe bet that this bridge deal will be cost-effective for Edmonton, even with their cap constraints in mind.
Signing that will send Edmonton over the cap, but keep them within that 10 percent cushion that’s allowed in the offseason. Since it isn’t some big salary cap weight, management likely wouldn’t have to make any immediate subtractions either just yet — they could play out the Kane LTIR situation and make moves as the season evolves to balance the books.
With Broberg, it’s not that simple. A $4.5 million addition would be a lot trickier to navigate.
Like Holloway, Broberg doesn’t have an impactful track record at the NHL level to depend on. The 23-year-old only played 12 regular-season games this past season and appeared in 10 playoff games. He didn’t always impress in those limited samples and made some costly mistakes along the way. But he did give Edmonton a real boost in the playoffs when inserted into the lineup. On the biggest stage, he added some puck-moving play to the Oilers’ defense which they lacked outside of their first pair. And that seemed to earn him a starting role for the 2024-25 season, based on management’s offseason moves (or lack thereof) on defense.
Evolving-Hockey forecasted a sub-$900,000 cap hit for Broberg on a one-year deal. And that is a lot closer to his market value at this point in his career. That market value is only based on 81 NHL games over the last three seasons, which isn’t a ton to go off of and includes a lot of shaky results. So it’s not fair to say it’s indicative of the player he will become over the next two years. Still, it’s a pricey jump making this all the more risky for Edmonton.
Any offer sheet thrown the Oilers’ way for Broberg was going to be an overpayment. That tends to be the name of the game because an opposing team has to accomplish two things with their offer. First, an opposing general manager has to sway the RFA to sign the contract. Second, they have to put the contract out of reach for their current team. It’s the degree of overpayment that is a problem here, unlike Holloway’s case. That makes this the tougher predicament, especially when there is less defensive depth to replace Broberg.
Management has to decide whether Broberg can be worth $4.5 million and whatever subtractions it may cost to fit that. It has to be decided if that’s worth the ripple effect matching this deal will have on the Oilers’ deadline cap space, which the team may want to maintain to help fuel another deep run. And then there are the repercussions for Year 2 of this deal to consider.
The Oilers may get some cap relief in 2025 with James Neal’s buyout off the books, along with Cody Ceci’s contract, and a handful of depth forwards. But there are two massive impending raises on the horizon, between Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard. So committing $4.5 million, a potential overpayment, to Broberg, could create a problem.
The Blues were very methodical with an offered salary that is one dollar shy of the next compensation tier. Losing Broberg will only bring back a second-rounder, not a first- and a third. But the salary implications of matching this deal likely exceed any compensation concerns, and may be what cost Edmonton one of their top-six defenders.
The Blues amped up the pressure in Edmonton with two offer sheets that threw a wrench right into their offseason planning. Instead of aiming for big-name stars that would cost a ton in salary and draft pick compensation, St. Louis targeted mid-tier players that are more attainable — and now they seem very likely to add at least one up-and-coming player to their roster for the 2024-25 season.
Data via CapFriendly, Evolving-Hockey, and CapWages.
(Top photo of Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway: Michael Martin / NHLI via Getty Images)
