That's Why They Call Them The Blues

When it comes to salary cap management, the most valuable asset that one can have is salary cap space. Cap space allows teams to be creative with their rosters, add players who they believe can help, and keep important players on their rosters. The Edmonton Oilers are finding out about the importance of cap space the hard way today as the St. Louis Blues complicated their summer by extending offer sheets to defenceman Philip Broberg and winger Dylan Holloway. Both players have accepted those offers, and the Oilers are now on the clock when it comes to matching the offers made to each player or letting one or both of them join the St. Louis Blues.

Roster management is something with which a lot of NHL general managers seem to struggle, but those who are successful work with their coaches to integrate younger players into their lineups and help those young players find roles in which they can be successful. Not every player will thrive nor will every player be able to play the roles needed on those teams. Failing to assess the talents and skills of those young players often means that teams overpay for older free agents rather than letting younger players grow into those roles.

You don't have to be an NHL insider to know where the Oilers sit when it comes to evaluating talent. Dylan Holloway's development over the season made him a solid contributor in the playoffs, but the signing of Jeff Skinner all but eliminated Holloway's opportunity to play on the Oilers' top lines this season. With the Blues restocking their lineup with younger players, Holloway's chances of playing significant minutes in St. Louis is nearly a no-brainer.

Broberg's development was stymied when he was slotted behind a number of players at the start of the season, but he worked hard and eventually began outplaying defenders like Vincent Desharnais and Brett Kulak where Broberg started getting their minutes in the playoffs. Outside of Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm, you could make a case that Philip Broberg might have been Edmonton's third-best defender when the Stanley Cup Playoffs finally came to a close. Joining the Blues via an offer sheet doesn't mean that Broberg becomes their top defender, but it will give him a shot at playing more than 12 games like he did with Edmonton last season.

What this comes down to, as illustrated above, is roster management and cap space management. There was no reason the Oilers had to sign Jeff Skinner other than they believe he's a more reliable scoring option that Holloway despite them not giving Holloway that opportunity. There was no need to add the likes of Connor Carrick, Troy Stecher, or Josh Brown to their blue line if they believed in Philip Broberg. The competitions being created for positions on the Oilers shouldn't hold a younger, less experienced player back, but we still have NHL GMs running their teams like it's the mid-1990s.

New Oilers general manager Stan Bowman now has two decisions to make that will likely affect a third, major decision. With Leon Draisaitl's contact extension being discussed internally and with his agent and Connor McDavid's contact extension to follow as his expires in 2026, the Oilers may have to get creative on the accounting side of things when it comes to paying thei two biggest stars. Having Broberg and Holloway on the books for the next two seasons at over $6 million doesn't help, but it doesn't make things easier if those players are playing down the lineup with inflated salaries.

Where the Oilers could get some help is through LTIR money as it appears that Evander Kane will be choosing that option to begin the season. How long he remains on LTIR has yet to be determined, but any extra money the Oilers can find will help them in this situation. It won't solve the problem as Kane is expected to return at some point, but having an extra $5 million to play with when the season opens gives Bowman a little breathing room when it comes to solving these new salary cap problems caused by the Blues.

We'll know by Monday what the Oilers are going to do about these players, and the compensation that they would receive from the Blues if they don't match the offers might be assets they want. Based on the money offered to Broberg and Holloway - $4,580,917 for Broberg and $2,290,457 for Holloway on two-year deals - Broberg would fetch a second-round pick while Holloway would fetch a third-round pick. Neither of those will fetch a blue-chip, can't-miss prospect in the draft, but they could be used in other trades to improve the Oilers. If the Oilers could package one of those picks and a player for some cap relief, those assets would prove useful.

My concern in this situation is that Bowman is going to do to Edmonton what he did to Chicago in giving out bloated contracts to players while watching good, young talent move to other teams where they find all sorts of success. Bowman is the guy who traded Phillip Danault, Teuvo Teravainen, Ryan Hartman, Gustav Forsling, and Robin Lehner between 2015 and 2020 as he worked to keep the Blackhawks in contention for the Stanley Cup. All of those players have become big pieces for other teams, and all would have been less expensive options for the Blackhawks if they had managed their cap and their roster correctly.

With the Oilers having very little in the prospect pipeline, keeping Holloway and Broberg would ease some of that "restocking the cupboards" pain that they may face in the coming years. The salary cap may prevent them from staying, though, so things have to change in Edmonton. Keeping McDavid, Draisaitl, and Bouchard seem like no-brainers, but the rest of the roster can't be aging, overpriced veteran players. At some point, there needs to be some internal promotion in order to assist in the salary cap management, and that's a luxury the Oilers simply don't have at this moment.

If the Oilers choose to keep two good young players in Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, they'll be forced to overpay them based on their offer sheets. If they choose to let them join the Blues, they'll lose another couple of prospects who could excel with another team. If they opt to keep one player over another, there's no guarantee that the player they choose will win one of those roster battles in camp, potentially saddling the Oilers with an expensive pressbox member.

In short, the Blues have forced some tough decisions to be made by the Oilers as they work through the various scenarios that could play out in this offer sheet situation. None of those decisions are clear-cut, straight-forward decisions that will be easy to manage today or in a year's time. The Oilers will undoubtedly spend the rest of this week figuring out what path they want to take, but none of them seem ideal.

The St. Louis Blues muddled things nicely for the Edmonton Oilers with these offer sheets, but that's the price that good teams will pay if they don't manage their rosters and salary caps well. The NHL is, and will always be, a business first and managing salary expenses and promoting from within is what good businesses do. For all those businesses that dont, I can only offer these words from Sir Elton John: "I guess that's why they call it the blues".

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!