The Blues are tendering offer sheets to Oilers RFAs Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, the team announced (via Matthew DeFranks of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch). In a separate transaction, they’ve reacquired their own 2025 second-round pick from the Penguins to have the appropriate compensation should Edmonton not match one or both of the offer sheets.
St. Louis’ offer sheet for Broberg is a two-year, $9.16MM deal, while Holloway’s is a two-year, $4.58MM deal, per DeFranks. The deals carry AAVs of $4.58MM and $2.29MM, respectively.
Both are at the maximum of their respective categories in the offer sheet compensation thresholds, which the league updated this offseason. Should Edmonton fail to match, the Blues would owe the Oilers their 2025 third-round pick for Holloway and the aforementioned 2025 second-round pick for Broberg.
The preceding pick swap with the Penguins saw the Blues acquire Pittsburgh’s 2026 fifth-round pick and next year’s second-rounder, sending their 2026 second-round pick and the Senators’ 2025 third-round pick in return. St. Louis had sent its 2025 second-rounder to the Penguins in June to get Kevin Hayes’ $3.57MM cap hit off the books, while they acquired Ottawa’s pick as compensation for taking on the final two seasons of Mathieu Joseph’s contract at a $2.95MM cap hit.
New Oilers general manager Stan Bowman now has seven days to decide whether to match the offer sheets or accept the draft-pick compensation. But given Edmonton’s financial situation, matching the bloated short-term deals will be a tough ask.
The second year attached to both deals may be the deciding factor. Not only are the Oilers already over the salary cap today, paying out nearly $7MM in cap hits in 2025-26 for Broberg and Holloway would significantly inhibit their ability to sign pending UFA Leon Draisaitl to what will likely be the richest deal in franchise history.
But if the Oilers decide to match one or both the offer sheets, they wouldn’t need to make any corresponding transactions immediately. Edmonton is only roughly $350K over the $88MM salary cap, per PuckPedia, and teams can exceed that upper limit by up to 10% during the offseason. That’s enough wiggle room to add $6.87MM worth of Broberg and Holloway to the books, but they would need to shed more salary than previously anticipated to become cap-compliant by the time opening-night rosters are due.
Edmonton’s short-term crunch could be helped out by Evander Kane, who’s expected to need surgery and will likely start the season on long-term injured reserve. But if Kane and his $5.125MM cap hit aren’t expected to miss the entire season, they’ll still need space to activate him at some point.
On St. Louis’ end, it’s now clear why GM Doug Armstrong was intent on keeping his options open financially this summer, shedding some bad deals for slightly more cost-effective ones. The Blues have $7.34MM in projected cap space, per PuckPedia, ninth-most in the league. It’s enough to take on the AAVs for Broberg and Holloway without any corresponding moves, and they could end up with even more flexibility should defenseman Torey Krug require surgery to address pre-arthritic conditions in his left ankle. That would cost him the entire 2024-25 season and make him eligible for LTIR, allowing them to use his $6.5MM cap hit for relief.
Failing to match either would be a tough proposition for the Oilers, who selected Broberg eighth overall in 2019 and Holloway at 14th overall in 2020. Both are on their way to becoming everyday NHL contributors, with Holloway appearing in all 25 playoff games for Edmonton and Broberg pushing for more NHL minutes after excelling with the Oilers’ AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, last season.
It is about time NHL clubs do this more. Pressure teams to match or not too. It is a business not a game..I love it..
IT’S HAPPENING PEOPLE!
Awesome. Wish more teams would do this.
Until some rascal offer-sheets your club. Then.. not so fun!
But that’s where the fun really starts! The whole Carolina-Montreal drama was great!
but that’s he thing. there is this concern that if you offer sheet them, they will offer sheet you… but if more teams do this, it will become more of a norm and that concern will be less likely as you need to be concerned about anyone.
They’ll keep them
How did the Oilers not get anything for Broberg?
@uvmfiji — If Broberg accepts, EDM will get draft pick compensation as well as cap relief.
If it’s a split… who do they keep?
It’s not up to Broberg to ‘accept’; it’s up to Edmonton whether to match or not.
Broberg and Holloway have both accepted the offer sheets which is why Edmonton is now on the clock.
No that’s not true, the offer sheet is essentially a contract offer. So that means both players signed the offer sheets, as they I imagine, thought the pay is more then they would get otherwise. Now that they signed the sheet EDMONTON has a week to match. I believe there was a player not to long ago that was offered a sheet and did not sign it
@Murphy NFLD. Not sure who you’re talking to or exactly what you’re saying here.
The “offer sheet” is a contract. Those players signed contracts with St. Louis and now Edmonton has a week to match the contract or take compensation.
@Fargo Chipper — Maybe Bowman resorts to old time tech. “Broberg, you’re heads, Holloway you’re tails” I’d keep Broberg, though, as his defense is improving.
I think I should’ve reworded that post. “If Broberg accepts” is wrong. He already accepted by signing the offer sheet. Same with Holloway. The rest is OK. (face palm)
They have not yet lost him.
@doghockey — Sorry, I worded the original comment as though the players were only thinking about the offer sheets, rather than realizing they had signed them. You’re right, though, they aren’t gone until they are (or won’t).
It’s a good thing everyone hates Stan Bowman, so Army and St. Louis will largely get a pass in the court of public opinion. (At least outside of Edmonton.)
But who do they dump, and then not resign draisaitl? I feel like Leon is more important than those 2 guys.
@bighiggy — If EDM doesn’t match, this would amount to trading for the needed cap space for Leon. So, you are still right, Leon is more important than Broberg & Holloway.
It’s two offer sheets… they don’t have to match both.
Dougie! Savage!
Savage? Really? Your babbling post is like saying signing a guy to a contract is savage. Please keep posting!
Found the oilers fan! Sorry I hurt your feelings, try to have a better day!
Message to everyone saying “why doesn’t this happen more?”
In addition to the boys-club don’t piss each other off
The players have to agree to sign. So thinking of signing an offer sheet has two consequences.
1. Offensive to the team that drafted you a few years prior. Could hurt future negotiations/playing time.
2. Team making offer may not be that desirable. Just because Ottawa sends a fax doesn’t mean you want to be a Senator.
in fairness, people are more wondering why signed offer sheets don’t happen more.
we have no idea how many actual offer sheets are tenured to players that aren’t signed.
So you’re saying that both the offer sheeted team has to decline matching the offer, and also the player has to agree to sign with a new team? Both have to happen? I thought the player had no say in the matter.
No. Broberg and Holloway have signed valid contracts with the Blues, which the Oilers have seven days to match. The new team still has to get the RFA to sign an offer sheet.
Hell yeah, Army!
This Happened because stan bowman is G.M. Many people hockey believe was hired by chicago because of his dad. He took credit for Dale Tallon teams After he stabbed him in back to get hired. He was buddy buddy with owners.
Looks like the Bowman fallout has just begun. Armstrong taking advantage of the fact that nobody in the league will really think this as a dirty move. If anything, I’m thinking quite a few GM’s are cheering.
What determines the compensation for an offer sheet? For some reason I thought it was a 1st no matter what.
The AAV of the offer sheet determines the compensation owed. The breakdown is linked in the article in the third paragraph: link to prohockeyrumors.com
Hi Josh,
What are the rules for trading players that sign offer sheets? I thought they can’t be traded for a while but I don’t remember for how long. For example, the Oilers can’t match the offer sheet and then trade the player. Thank you
You’re correct – that trade moratorium lasts for one year
Thank you
I know no one else cares about this part of the deal, but I love what the Pens did here.
We need to accumulate picks down the road. Too many picks now could prevent the bottoming out needed post-Sid and leave us middling. So, a 2026 pick is better than 2025 (not knowing anything about the draft classes) and STL is trending downward, so it should be a better pick then, too.
And obviously, turning a 5th into a 3rd is nice.
St. Louis is trending downward? False. St. Louis is down and trending upward.
My opinion, mostly worthless, is that the Pens are already middling.
Middling on the way down from winning 3 Cups and making the playoffs 18 years in a row with a bunch of first ballot HOF’ers is one thing.
Ending up middling because you “rebuild” without bottoming out and getting top 5 picks and THEN going nowhere is a whole different story.
Broberg could be nice young addition for blues aging blue line. Oilers should match on the other , they value his speed. I like putting teams in a tough spot like the back of a Volkswagen
You sir get a thumbs up for the mallrats reference
Armstrong must have agreed with my post on the RFA thread…
Bowman’s reeling right now. His first thought was not to tell the owner about this!