NHL Rumor Mill – August 14, 2024
What are the Oilers’ options regarding the offer sheets for Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway? How could those offer sheets affect other clubs with still-unsigned restricted free agents? Find out in today’s NHL Rumor Mill.
SPORTSNET: Mark Spector looked at the options facing the Edmonton Oilers after Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway signed offer sheets with the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday.
Broberg’s is a two-year contract with an average annual value of $4,580,917 while Holloway’s is two years with an AAV of $2,290,457. The Oilers have seven days from the date those offers were signed to match them.
The Oilers could afford to walk away as neither player constitutes the difference between winning or losing the Stanley Cup. However, both are former first-round picks on a club with an already thin prospect pipeline.

Edmonton Oilers forward Dylan Holloway (NHL Images).
They could opt to retain one or the other. Holloway’s is the most affordable but it would sting to let the promising Broberg let go for peanuts.
Of the two, Spector thinks the Oilers will retain Holloway. He believes it risky to sign Broberg when he might not play up to his cap hit, especially when they’ve got Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard to sign before next summer. He suggests using the second-round pick received from the Blues as trade bait to replace Broberg.
Holloway’s deal is cheaper plus the Oilers could use his speed after adding or retaining veterans like Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner, Corey Perry and Adam Henrique.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Oilers can’t afford to match both offers without shedding significant salary. It’s unlikely they’ll let both players walk. Holloway’s offer seems more likely to be matched given its affordability to Broberg’s. The latter’s departure will further weaken the Oilers’ blueline, forcing them into the trade or free-agent markets for an affordable short-term replacement.
BOSTON HOCKEY NOW: Andrew Fantucchio doesn’t anticipate the Blues’ attempt to sign away Broberg and Holloway from the Oilers will inspire other clubs to try and sign Jeremy Swayman.
The restricted free-agent goaltender is expected to sign a multiyear deal with the Bruins between $7.75 million and $10 million based on comparable players. It’ll likely be close to $8.6 million, which the Bruins have in cap space.
NEW JERSEY HOCKEY NOW: James Nichols looked at what an offer sheet for Devils RFA forward Dawson Mercer would look like. Citing AFP Analytics, a two-year offer sheet would be close to $4 million annually. A six-year offer would have an AAV of around $6.5 million.
THE HOCKEY NEWS: Connor Earegood speculates the Blues’ attempt to sign Broberg and Holloway could speed up the Detroit Red Wings’ signings of defenseman Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond.
Meanwhile, Carter Brooks wondered what effect those offer sheets might have on the Winnipeg Jets’ efforts to sign RFA center Cole Perfetti.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: It’s understandable why fans of those clubs watching this situation play out might be worried that those players could also become offer sheet targets. However, that’s unlikely to happen because the Bruins, Devils, Red Wings, and Jets have more cap flexibility to match any offer sheet.
The Oilers face more difficulty matching those offer sheets. They were vulnerable because they were already over the $88 million salary cap.
SAN JOSE HOCKEY NOW: Sheng Peng wondered if the Sharks could use the Oilers’ situation to their advantage. If the Oilers attempt to shed salary via trade, Peng suggests the Sharks try to prize away a defenseman like Cody Ceci or Brett Kulak along with a draft pick.
MONTREAL HOCKEY NOW: Marc Dumont suggests the Canadiens use their cap space to their advantage by acquiring Ceci or another player and a draft pick or landing a draft pick by becoming a third-party broker for the Oilers.
I would rather the Habs act as a third party broker with regard to Ceci as long as the return is worthwhile. We don’t need another veteran taking up a spot best used for a young player. That was the point of trading Kovacevic
If MTL can get a 1st round pick for taking on Ceci’s contract, they can then buy him out at 1,167 for 2 years.
Premier I agree that they should pick up Ceci if they could get a 1st. I just don’t see the Oilers giving up a 1st. And I don’t see how they could buy him out now. The buyout period is long over.
Problem with Oilers is that they have a condition on the 2025 1st already for getting that 31st over all at this last draft. So it would have to be the 2026 1st & then it lifts the condition of that 2025 1st. That is pretty ugly situation. Jackson didnt think this would happen & now he’s in a horrible situation.
Hi Premier
I can’t see them paying a 1st
Letting Broberg walk gets a 2nd
I’d think a 3rd might do it
Penguins got a 2nd to take on 2 years each at $3.7 M for a very soft; very slow; aging 3rd/4th line Center
Ceci only has 1 year left and at a smaller Cap hit
Before the ink is even dry on todays column, the Oilers matched the offer sheets. Suprised they matched Broberg, definately not worth the money. So St.louis accomplished nothing except helping bring 2 more players into the overpaid catagory
Yogi where the heck do you see this haha ?
Which squeezes a competitor smart move by Blues
And now they sit $7,225,541 over the cap with 23 committed to – 13F 8D 2G – and Kane’s $5,125,000 insufficient to cover it when he goes on LTIR which, depending upon when he has surgery, won’t last that long into the season.
They weakened a west coast rival. They attempted to strengthen their own team. They were bold enough to use the rfa system hopefully opening up other teams to make similar moves in the future. Thus pressuring other team’s gms. That pressure could result in rash decisions.
St. Louis definitely didn’t accomplish nothing.
I disagree. This puts a lot of pressure on Edmonton. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in their GM meetings today!
They now need to make serious moves.
Match them? If so, they need to move out other players. Kane alone isn’t enough to fit them both in. Plus Kane on LTIR only buys them a month or 2 before they would need to make even more cuts.
Let them walk? Then they need to backfill roster spots with what? Scrap heap free agents?
Not to mention, matching puts huge pressure on them financially NEXT year to sign Leon.
St Louis made a great calculated move, and all it will cost them is a 2nd and 3rd rounder (plus some cash that they have available).
Lets back up a moment. Broberg was not a key contributer until the playoffs and spent most of the season in the ahl last year. He has promise but as to what he is nhl wise is still not known. We have seen more than a player or two have a good playoff run and not build on it.
As for holloway, he is more apt to be a depth forward this season likely 4th line, maybe 3rd (id keep janmark, henrique and brown in tact to start) so in that regard, in terms of ice time, a lavoie, a savoie, a hamblin could all fill that role.
Where it hurts is the potential that both wpuld be forcing themselves to bigger roles on the team
It is calculated by st louis for sure, but the loss of both players short term wont impact the oilers as much like to believe.
Regardles it was a mess before the offer sheets, it is much messier now. Glad it is ot my problem to fix. Lol
Kane may not even have the operation until Oct., which means he’ll miss a good chunk of the season if not all. That probably means moving Ceci and those moves hardly weakens the Oilers. This forces the Oilers to play Broberg and Holliway and if they take the next step in their development like Armstrong thinks, he may have just made them stronger not weaker. Oilers were already looking to move Ceci, so there’s no loss there and Kane on the LTIR is again a positive. Armstrong had to reaquire the 2nd which cost them extra, so move went to waste and all it did was force the Oilers spend an extra million or so signing the 2 players. Now the Oilers won’t think twice about returning the favour. So really what did Armstrong accomplish? Not much
Now the cost to move ceci will be higher as well if that’s who they have to move.
The Oilers have 2 choices
#1/ Option
Evander Kane savings most of his Salary on long-term injury reserve. $5.12M, could be about
4.75M
Then they Trade Cody Ceci, $3.25M use Broberg on his RD 2nd pairing thats $8.M in total savings
Or
#2/ Option
they just Trade Nurse like the Oilers fans have been asking for since they signed him to the $9.25M deal……⁉️
#2 would make oilers fans very happy 😃
PS
if we lose both these good young kids….
New GM Bowman is not going to be a popular guy in Edmonton at ALL…..
WillieW
Only option 1
Option 2 not viable with Nurse’s full NMC
Kane LTIR/Ceci out; does it
They’ll deal with thr Cap issue nearing Kanes return
Who knows; perhaps nearing Kane’s return there id another LTIR…. Injuries happen
Sending the decision down the road and dealing with the here and now id the route to take
Huh? Literally no online articles or even weirdo social media posts have said this… Oilers have not matched anything as yet.
theSaint, like Yogi I too looked at PuckPedia this morning and immediately assumed th e offer sheets had been matched by Edmonton.
Here’s how it kinda went:
Immediately after the news of the offer sheets broke I went to PuckPedia where I saw both players still listed among the Edmonton Fs and D, including the cap hits for each that would become functional either through a matching offer or if St. Louis was allowed to add them to their roster.
Then I looked at the top of the page where Puckpedia shows the existing cap situation on each team’s page, and saw they were still showing Edmonton as being just over $300,000 over the cap, with the understanding that the Oilers had 7 days to match before that entry changed.
But when I checked back in to Puckpedia that cap situation had suddenly changed to $7.225,541 over the cap, implying that the Oilers had indeed decided to match and so Puckpedia had amended their page to reflect the new situation.
Hence the confusion.
If the Oilers had matched, TSN and Sportsnet would be all over it. They haven’t matched yet, and for all we know, they might not. All we’ve got so far is speculation that they’ll match Holloway’s because it’s the more affordable of the two.
To settle this once and for all, I contacted Puckpedia directly. Here’s their reply:
“We’re kind of in this limbo stage. The players are officially still Oilers property, so they definitely can’t be on St Louis’ page. But the contracts don’t get registered until a week has passed and the Oilers officially match or don’t match. So like most things in the off-season, the Oilers page is a projection. In season everything is 100% accurate based on where players actually are, but in the off-season it’s all just trying to present to users the mostly likely outcome when the season starts.”
Lyle sorry not trying to be stubborn, but I’m also not wrong. Puckpedia posted info and I went with what they had posted. They’ve made changes in what they originally posted, which is where the the confusion begins. My mistake was using Puckpedia as a source and that won’t happen again. Capfriendly was great, hopefully we’ll find a site as good. Again apologies for sounding and looking stubborn
I cannot find any links saying oil signed the 2?????
Puckpedia
Puckpedia is merely showing that the contracts are currently being counted against the Oilers cap. They haven’t agreed to match the offers.
If you go to puckpedia and hit player signings it shows them as signed and that’ what I’m going by
Yogi, Broberg and Holloway have signed contracts but the Oilers still hold their rights until they decide within the seven-day time frame if they’ll match the offers. It’s first right of refusal. They don’t belong to the Blues until then. That’s why Puckpedia is showing them with the Oilers. No decision has been made yet and Puckpedia doesn’t have any advance knowledge or “insider” info suggesting otherwise. It’s simply for accounting purposes.
According to Darren Ferris, contract has been signed and he should know
Yogi, yes, the contracts have been signed. No one is arguing that. The fact remains that their rights still belong with the Oilers over the course of this seven-day right of refusal period. If they decide not to match those offers, their right officially belong to the Blues. Until then, that’s not the case. Their rights still belong with the Oilers.
Ask yourself this question, Yogi: If the Oilers have already matched the offer sheets, why hasn’t it been reported yet? That would be big news in Edmonton and in the Canadian sports media. It would be all over TSN, Sportsnet, and the Edmonton media by now.
It’s because the Oilers haven’t matched yet. They have not officially informed the league yet of their intentions.
Puckpedia is showing the cap, because Edmonton still owns their rights.
If you to the transaction section of Puckpedia, it shows 4 separate transactions. The first 2 transactions are Hollaway Broberg have signed offer sheets. The next 2 transactions say they signed with the Oilers. Whether Puckpedia has inside info or they’re just unreliable we’ll soon find out. I’m just going by what they have
Now you’re just being stubborn. We’ve explained it to you. And don’t smear Puckpedia as “unreliable”. They’re accurately reflecting the situation as we explained it to you.
You could just say “whoops! My bad” Yogi.
Mrbruin4, the day of the offer sheets Puckpedia still showed both as Oilers but in their cap reserve shown at the top of each team’s page they still showed them just over $300,000 over the cap.
This morning that has changed to $7,225,441 over the cap – so either PuckPedia knows something that hasn’t yet hit the main media, or they simply adjusted the cap situation pending a decision one way or another by Bowman.
Doesn’t make it any less confusing though.
George, as Snold 49 pointed out, Puckpedia is merely showing that the contracts are currently being counted against the Oilers cap. That’s because those players still belong to the Oilers until they decide if they’ll match or not. If not, the contracts transfer to the Blues.
Lyle, I understand that. What I was pointing out as the possible cause for confusion, was that, right after the offer sheets were made known, the PuckPedia page showed both players as still with the Oilers AND with their offer amounts inserted. But at the top of the page, where they reflect a team’s existing cap space, they continued to show the Oilers as being just over $300,000 over the top, with the understanding that the Oilers had 7 days in which to match the offers or not.
Fair enough.
But this morning their Oilers page suddenly showed them as $7.2 mil plus change over the top, implying – through the sudden change in cap space – that they had matched the offers.
Small wonder that Duhatschek felt compelled to write this article for the NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5359753/2024/03/26/duhatschek-nhl-ltir-rules/
I think confusion comes from the term “offer sheet”.
Broberg and Holloway officially SIGNED the deals. They signed actual contracts for the next 2 seasons; they are not just “offers”. They are binding and those players are getting paid exactly what has been laid out (no more, no less, the deal can’t be changed now as it is binding).
For the next 7 days they still belong to Edmonton unless Edmonton lets them walk to St Louis for the picks. So they stay on Edmonton’s books and cap based on the new offers/contracts they signed.
Nothing has been anounced in Edmonton @4.15pm MT. as of today
I’m sure the oilers are looking at Trades right now in the GM office and they are all buring up the phone lines…..
They still have 5 more days🤔
fyi….
I don’t think they’ve matched the offer sheets, I think it’s just that they own the players until a decision is made.
Even if Stan matches both it’s silly to posit this doesn’t hurt the Oilers. Do you think Bouchard is going to accept anything less than 9.5 per AAV . Add up there “top four” and they will be collectively making 30 million -and a meh top four at that. And that’s before you broach resigning Leon ( oh and let’s not forget paying Jack Campbell). Nill, McCrimmon, Sakic are sending atta boy texts to Armstrong.
Thx for clarifying. So not matched yet. I am sure they working phones to find out what trades can be made to open space and if those trades are actually worth it.
If they wanted to hang on to the 2 younger former first rounders, trading for Carey Price’s cap relief could be an option.
that’s not how cap relief works. They would add Prices contract, and then move it to LTIR and get relief from that contract. Net 0 impact to what they could actually spend this year on new players.
Think of it this way (and I’ll use round numbers to make my math easy), if the Cap was $90M and they traded for Price at $10M, their total cap would be $100M. Putting Price on LTIR gives them forgiveness to be at $100M. It does not give them the ability to spend even more money. They are still at $90M active roster and $10M LTIR.
Broberg and Holloway are represented by two different agents and companies. That makes it look more likely that Armstrong pursued this opportunity to make it happen as it would require convincing two agents of the ‘ambush’ plan and convincing two players to risk leaving a championship caliber team with McD and Draisaitl. The easier way for this to come together would have been if one agent represented both players and the agent schemed to make it happen.
Good on Armstrong for making it happen and using the CBA to make it difficult for the talent rich teams to retain young players and top end talent. I hope to see more of it.
Cannot agree more
Excellent point
This was a very goof move by Army
Best case; he gets two NHLers on the rise who live up to or even supersede their cap hit AND still retain their rights in 3 years
Worst case, they get 2 young NHLers and slightly overpay for them at the expense of a 2nd and 3rd (no guarantee they’d ever make NHL; and if they did it won’t be before 27/28
*Ceci and a 2nd (‘26) to Pens for 4th (‘27)
*Pens only have 2 RDs (Letang and Karllsson)
Kane on LTIR; match the offers
Oilers under the cap; move any other roster decision(s) down the road (nearing Kane’s return) . It’s possible there id another LTIR injury before Kane returns
Ceci is a terrible defenseman. It may cost more than that.
If you offer sheet Swayman 9 mill it costs the offering team a 1st, 2nd 3rd round pick. If you believe he’s the goalie of the future…..there are a couple teams who could make that gamble.