Confirmed with Link: Blues sign 2 Oilers to offer sheets!

[ChicagoBlues]

Now watch Paul Fischer come out of college in a couple years, refuse to sign with Edmonton and then sign with the Blues.

 

[Meatball]

Dude I keep trying to make a lineup guess and there is just too many players I want to include. This is the one I keep going back to

Neighbours - Thomas - Kyrou
Saad - Buchnevich - Schenn
Texier - Holloway - Joseph
Toropchenko - Faksa - Sundqvist (if ready at start of season)

Other guys who could push for a spot: Walker, Kapanen, Dvorsky, Bolduc, Dean and Sylvegard

Broberg - Parayko
Leddy - Faulk
Suter - Kessel

Assuming Krug is out for season, you also have POJ and Perunovich

Holy shit has Army done a fantastic job of replenishing the depth.

That's a playoff team.

As sure as this says "The Bibble".

 

[mk80]

In game 7 triple ot?

I’d probably prefer those two scoring a late goal to make it like 4-3 with a minute to go, or even better sealing the deal with an empty netter…. The 3OT games I like in the non Blues related series.



Also I love this narrative Oilers fans are creating about how Holloway should fire his agent for dragging him into this and forcing him to sign the offer sheet. Listening to his zoom interview he was ecstatic to be coming to the Blues to get more opportunity to crack the top 6, and he said the Oilers offer was far apart money wise to him.

 

[Reality Czech]

I’d probably prefer those two scoring a late goal to make it like 4-3 with a minute to go, or even better sealing the deal with an empty netter…. The 3OT games I like in the non Blues related series.



Also I love this narrative Oilers fans are creating about how Holloway should fire his agent for dragging him into this and forcing him to sign the offer sheet. Listening to his zoom interview he was ecstatic to be coming to the Blues to get more opportunity to crack the top 6, and he said the Oilers offer was far apart money wise to him.

Funny you say that because a lot of Oilers fans saw sadness in his eyes during that interview.

They make it sound like he got tricked by his agent into signing the contract as if he's not capable of making his own decisions. I believe he said something try the effect of "people don't know what happened behind the scenes" during the interview so obviously there were some hurt feelings about how the Oilers treated him.

 

[Itsnotatrap]

Funny you say that because a lot of Oilers fans saw sadness in his eyes during that interview.

They make it sound like he got tricked by his agent into signing the contract as if he's not capable of making his own decisions. I believe he said something try the effect of "people don't know what happened behind the scenes" during the interview so obviously there were some hurt feelings about how the Oilers treated him.

Yeah, I’ve seen some of that stuff. Nothing more hackish than taking a screencap of people’s faces at the most unflattering time and spinning your narrative off that.

That said, why do Oiler fans make McDavid so uncomfortable? Look at those eyes. They scream “please get me away from these people.”

 

[Jumptheshark]

Losing Broberg hurts the oilers. He looks ready for top 4 minutes. Halloway saw the oilers add Skinner and Arvidson and was out.

 

[Itsnotatrap]

Anyway, I could accept the Oiler spin that they were sad about this, and say their faces look like the corporate worker that just got a meets/exceeds expectation review coupled with a 1.0% raise because “times are tough” even though the earnings were just stronger than ever.

Their management assumed they could have it all, and the worker bees would fall in line. They assumed wrong. I am sure it was a painful experience, but they both made the right decision for themselves, after being boxed in.

Also, after being called on it, given the hand they were left, I see the wisdom in the Oilers folding and using those assets and space (and squeezing a couple more) to see what the needs are around the deadline, and filling those when they have more compete information to get the optimal piece or 2.

 

[mk80]

Funny you say that because a lot of Oilers fans saw sadness in his eyes during that interview.

They make it sound like he got tricked by his agent into signing the contract as if he's not capable of making his own decisions. I believe he said something try the effect of "people don't know what happened behind the scenes" during the interview so obviously there were some hurt feelings about how the Oilers treated him.

To make the same comment I did yesterday, I enjoyed his interview.

I expected the more standard answers hockey players give. But Holloway did peel back the curtain a bit at times. He did say he felt no matter how the offer sheet turned out (being matched or not) it was something he couldn’t pass up and would put him in a good spot either way. So I think unlike Broberg he wasn’t as dead set on leaving Edmonton, but the idea that he signed the offer sheet but didn’t want to is just plain false.

 

[Reality Czech]

Yeah, I’ve seen some of that stuff. Nothing more hackish than taking a screencap of people’s faces at the most unflattering time and spinning your narrative off that.

That said, why do Oiler fans make McDavid so uncomfortable? Look at those eyes. They scream “please get me away from these people.”

View attachment 902309

I will forever love that picture but I would probably make the same face Connor is making. Poor guy lol

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

Hopefully St Louis and Edmonton get matched up in the 1st round this year. Can you imagine the meltdown if the Blues looked competitive in that series, or threatened to win?

It’s all found money for the Blues this year, but for Edmonton this is the culmination of their build up and maybe their best chance.

 

[GlizzyGobbler]

So. I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet or not, but of the things I noticed during #OfferSheetWeek was how badly the NMCs that the Oilers have on their roster ended up handcuffing them.

I would venture a guess that if you wanted to, you could get a player to agree to a trade to just about anywhere with the threat of being waved to the the minors. Hyman, Nuge, Skinner, Kane, and Nurse all have NMCs. Skinner, Kane, and (maaaaybe) Hyman would make the most attractive pieces for a team to add, but their pieces are eliminated off the chessboard due to the NMC.

I heard several people say, "we should just waive Kane and let him get picked up by another team.

Ope.

Now, before you all come after me, I'm not sayin those would have been good ways to get out of the mess. I'm just saying, it would have been A WAY of doing it. One that was effectively eliminated from consideration before it could even be considered.

The other thing were the Oilers being out of buyouts. I don't think I need to go into too much detail here on this one as it speaks for itself.

If the Oilers front office had not exercised these mechanisms, for debatably frivolous and shortsighted reasons, they could have easily gotten themselves out of this jam.

All in all, I think this was a perfect storm that the Oilers created by themselves and serves as a fantastic case study on why Army has categorically told us and shown us he will not dole out NMCs or use any buyouts.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

Hopefully St Louis and Edmonton get matched up in the 1st round this year. Can you imagine the meltdown if the Blues looked competitive in that series, or threatened to win?

It’s all found money for the Blues this year, but for Edmonton this is the culmination of their build up and maybe their best chance.

Holloway with a Game 7 series winner. Their fanbase would collapse.

 

[tfriede2]

I’m not convinced just yet that they’re matching either player. Even without Holloway and Broberg, they’re still about $700k over the cap. They received a serviceable cheap RHD to replace Ceci. They can be cap compliant by waiving one of their depth forwards (like Brown). Yes, they may put Kane on LTIR, but by all accounts his injury, even with surgery, would not leave him out longer than a few months. These moves needed to be made regardless of the offer sheets. But, we’ll see

Hot damn, my instincts were finally right. As I read all the gloating by some Edmonton fans after Ceci was traded, I still didn’t “get it.” That trade allowed them to be cap compliant without Broberg and Holloway, but counting on Kane to be on LTIR for the whole season (or until his NMC turned into a modified NTC just prior to the trade deadline) just didn’t make any sense to me. I’ve heard that Kane might not even require LTIR at all now, so it all makes sense either way (the way it turned out).

Anyway, I could barely sleep Monday night. Ecstatic how this turned out. Glad DA takes his chances.

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

Due to the timing, there is a school of thought that the Kane to LTIR rumor was a defensive ploy to try and discourage offer sheets.

They get more benefit if they can be cap compliant with Kane and THEN put him on IR, so maybe that’s the plan.

 

[Memento]

Holloway with a Game 7 series winner. Their fanbase would collapse.

I think I prefer Holloway and Broberg with at least four points in four games each, as we easily sweep the Oilers in the first round.

 

[blue zone]

In game 7 triple ot?

Game 4. Regulation

 

[Reality Czech]

So. I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet or not, but of the things I noticed during #OfferSheetWeek was how badly the NMCs that the Oilers have on their roster ended up handcuffing them.

I would venture a guess that if you wanted to, you could get a player to agree to a trade to just about anywhere with the threat of being waved to the the minors. Hyman, Nuge, Skinner, Kane, and Nurse all have NMCs. Skinner, Kane, and (maaaaybe) Hyman would make the most attractive pieces for a team to add, but their pieces are eliminated off the chessboard due to the NMC.

I heard several people say, "we should just waive Kane and let him get picked up by another team.

Ope.

Now, before you all come after me, I'm not sayin those would have been good ways to get out of the mess. I'm just saying, it would have been A WAY of doing it. One that was effectively eliminated from consideration before it could even be considered.

The other thing were the Oilers being out of buyouts. I don't think I need to go into too much detail here on this one as it speaks for itself.

If the Oilers front office had not exercised these mechanisms, for debatably frivolous and shortsighted reasons, they could have easily gotten themselves out of this jam.

All in all, I think this was a perfect storm that the Oilers created by themselves and serves as a fantastic case study on why Army has categorically told us and shown us he will not dole out NMCs or use any buyouts.

You make good points and I think GMs are wise to avoid giving out NMCs as much as possible. That being said, sometimes you have to offer an NTC or NMC to get the guy to actually sign his name on the dotted line. Edmonton isn't very high on the list of desired markets among NHL players for a few reasons, so I'd be willing to bet that at least some of those players demanded the NMC as a condition to sign long term there. Or lets say 5 different teams are all offering a guy a contract and he says "I'll pick you if you offer an NMC." But your point of NMCs handcuffing teams is valid.

To me, the biggest failure on their part was a lack of foresight and not maintaining a good relationship with the players. Admittedly, turnover in their front office probably made it worse, but their GM needs to know what the players want and either sign or trade them before the situation got out of their control. Seems like they were taking both players for granted and assumed they'd just figure it out later.

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

Here's another interview with Dylan Holloway "not smiling" and "looking depressed" despite talking about how this is a better opportunity for him than if he had stayed in Edmonton.



I'm sure he'll be firing his agent any day now.

Seriously though, he seems to have a really good head on his shoulders and I wouldn't be surprised to see him wearing a letter at some point in his career.

 

[Brian39]

Strickland reported that the Oilers original offer to Holloway was $1.05M x 3 years. I'm sure there was some wiggle room there, but it is pretty clear that Holloway wasn't going to make more than $2.5M spread over the next 2 years in Edmonton. He's getting $4.5M over the next couple years in St. Louis.

Holloway is a guy who has roughly $1.5M in career earnings. He made $172.5k in the first year of his ELC. He spent about two-thirds of the 2022/23 season in the NHL and the other third in the AHL. So he likely made somewhere in the ballpark of $700k. The same thing happened last year, so he probably made roughly $700k. That's a great amount of money to have made before turning 23 years old.

But that isn't close to enough money for a guy to be able to just ignore an extra $2M. Way, way, way too many fans ignore the financial side of things, especially when we're talking about guys coming off ELCs. And even more especially when those guys spent about half of their ELC in the AHL.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Holloway was hoping that the Oilers would match. so that he could make $4.5M to spend the next couple years in Edmonton. But I'd bet a large chunk of money that he is extremely happy about getting an extra couple million dollars than he would have gotten had he not signed the offer sheet. I'd wager his order of preferences was like this:

1: Edmonton matches and he gets $2.29M x 2 to play in Edmonton

2: Edmonton doesn't match and he gets $2.29M x 2 to play in St. Louis

3: He forgoes the offer sheet and signs the best 2 or 3 year deal in the $1.25M AAV range that Edmonton presented on the eve of camp.

4: He holds out into camp to try and get over the $1.5M AAV range.

I'd wager that there was a decent gap between options 2 and 3. He made an extra $2M by signing an offer sheet. That's a massive amount of money for a guy who isn't already financially set for life.

 

[joe galiba]

Strickland reported that the Oilers original offer to Holloway was $1.05M x 3 years. I'm sure there was some wiggle room there, but it is pretty clear that Holloway wasn't going to make more than $2.5M spread over the next 2 years in Edmonton. He's getting $4.5M over the next couple years in St. Louis.

Holloway is a guy who has roughly $1.5M in career earnings. He made $172.5k in the first year of his ELC. He spent about two-thirds of the 2022/23 season in the NHL and the other third in the AHL. So he likely made somewhere in the ballpark of $700k. The same thing happened last year, so he probably made roughly $700k. That's a great amount of money to have made before turning 23 years old.

But that isn't close to enough money for a guy to be able to just ignore an extra $2M. Way, way, way too many fans ignore the financial side of things, especially when we're talking about guys coming off ELCs. And even more especially when those guys spent about half of their ELC in the AHL.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Holloway was hoping that the Oilers would match. so that he could make $4.5M to spend the next couple years in Edmonton. But I'd bet a large chunk of money that he is extremely happy about getting an extra couple million dollars than he would have gotten had he not signed the offer sheet. I'd wager his order of preferences was like this:

1: Edmonton matches and he gets $2.29M x 2 to play in Edmonton

2: Edmonton doesn't match and he gets $2.29M x 2 to play in St. Louis

3: He forgoes the offer sheet and signs the best 2 or 3 year deal in the $1.25M AAV range that Edmonton presented on the eve of camp.

4: He holds out into camp to try and get over the $1.5M AAV range.

I'd wager that there was a decent gap between options 2 and 3. He made an extra $2M by signing an offer sheet. That's a massive amount of money for a guy who isn't already financially set for life.

I think he may have preferred your option 2 over 1, the opportunity to play up the lineup could help him financially down the road as well

 

[oPlaiD]

It's so silly to say anything about either player not wanting to sign the deals. Both of them haven't earned much in their careers yet but now their futures are secure and they both have better shots to maximize their NHL minutes. And they're still both young enough to win the Cup during their careers... even if it likely won't be in the next two years in St. Louis.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

According to HFOilers, Bob Stauffer (Oilers media guy) spoke with former GM Brian Lawton who said Armstrong went to Holland before the tdl with an idea of a package deal involving Buchnevich, Broberg and Holloway, which Holland declined.

EDIT: I guess this is not really news.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

That's a playoff team.

But how are we gonna fit Kevin Hayes into the picture?

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Yeah, I’ve seen some of that stuff. Nothing more hackish than taking a screencap of people’s faces at the most unflattering time and spinning your narrative off that.

That said, why do Oiler fans make McDavid so uncomfortable? Look at those eyes. They scream “please get me away from these people.”

View attachment 902309

Mom?! Dad?! I always felt different. I just KNEW I was adopted!!
-
You're back in North America now, son! This is why we taught you English. Now do your best to fit in and do hockey!

 

[Stupendous Yappi]

According to HFOilers, Bob Stauffer (Oilers media guy) spoke with former GM Brian Lawton who said Armstrong went to Holland before the tdl with an idea of a package deal involving Buchnevich, Broberg and Holloway, which Holland declined.

EDIT: I guess this is not really news.

It tells me the Blues were targeting Broberg for a while, not just as an opportunistic acquisition.