The hockey world waits for the Edmonton Oilers to decide on the St. Louis Blues’ offer sheets to defenceman Philip Broberg and forward Dylan Holloway.
They have until early Tuesday morning to issue a decision, exactly seven days since the Blues signed Broberg to a two-year, $4.5-million offer sheet and Holloway a two-year, $2.2-million offer sheet. Should the Oilers let their 2019 and 2020 first-round draft picks join St. Louis, they’ll receive second- and third-round picks.
And according to Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli, he wouldn’t be surprised to see the Oilers do just that.
The Oilers insulated themselves Sunday with trades to bolster their forward group and blueline. First, they acquired winger Vasily Podkolzin from the Canucks for a fourth-round draft pick, hours later sending defenceman Cody Ceci and a third-round pick to the San Jose Sharks for defenceman Ty Emberson.
Edmonton cleared out some cap space in the shuffle, moving out the final year of Ceci’s $3.25-million contract, while bringing in Podkolzin’s two-year, $1-million deal, and Emberson’s one-year, $950,000. They gained roughly $1.3-million in cap space, and if they chose to match both offer sheets, the club could be cap-compliant by placing Evander Kane on the long-term injured reserve and assigning one player with a cap hit over $801,000 to the American Hockey League’s Bakersfield Condors.
Their acquisitions of Emberson and Podkolzin can easily be looked at as replacements for Broberg, Ceci and Holloway. Emberson a strong, stay-at-home defenceman was named the AHL Eastern Conference’s shutdown defenceman of the year for the 2022-23 season. He played for the Hartford Wolf Pack under Kris Knoblauch, so the Oilers bench boss will know this player well. According to hockeyviz.com, Emberson provided defence at a staggering 12 percent rate above league average last season — a 15 percent swing from Ceci’s last year, which was three percent rate below league average.
Podkolzin, meanwhile, was drafted by the Canucks 10th overall in 2019 and after a strong rookie season, has fallen out of favour in each of the last two years, playing more in the AHL than NHL. Still, he’s shown solid defensive value with the Canucks, similar to Holloway.
If the Oilers choose to decline both offer sheets, as Seravalli speculated Monday night, salary cap resource website PuckPedia tweeted the team could start the year with roughly $946,000 in cap space with a 21-man roster and Evander Kane on the injured reserve, allowing them to accumulate cap space. On the other hand, placing Kane on the long-term injured reserve could free up over $5-million in cap space for the team to play with.
