Somehow they had room for Skinner & Arvidsson though.
Let’s call a spade a spade. They got greedy and tried to fill out their whole roster and left Broberg and Holloway last thinking they would eat shit and fold.
Dylan Holloway 61gp 19g 26a 45pts
- Thread starter Spektre
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Let’s call a spade a spade. They got greedy and tried to fill out their whole roster and left Broberg and Holloway last thinking they would eat shit and fold.
I think most EDM fans would concede that their management made a mistake not getting Holloway and Broberg signed before going after players like Skinner and Arvidsson. I don't think anyone could have seen Holloway breaking out like this, but EDM certainly needed young legs with size and some skill that those two represented. You can certainly make the case that Jackson might've cost the Oilers a chance at a Cup this year with those decisions.
Would love to laugh and point fingers at EDM fans, but am too busy crying about my team, which can only dream about going to the Cup finals, and will be lucky to even make the playoffs.
Would love to laugh and point fingers at EDM fans, but am too busy crying about my team, which can only dream about going to the Cup finals, and will be lucky to even make the playoffs.
TheReelChuckFletcher
Former TheRillestPaulFenton; Harverd Alum
Also, if Holloway and Broberg were still Oilers, they would've actually had a shot with Rantanen.
The Oilers would lose Bouchard in 5 months if we had Holloway, Broberg and Rantanen even if you consider we didn't sign Henrique, Jeff Skinner and Arvidsson
TheReelChuckFletcher
Former TheRillestPaulFenton; Harverd Alum
That's not what I meant. I meant that Holloway and/or Broberg would've become Canes. Their trade offer would've been competitive with Dallas.
Can't trade them within a year of signing an offersheet.
I can’t remember the last time a player with 45 points was deemed to be so great.
23y, 45pts in 61gp for a 3rd round pick compensation isn't bad.
This is delusional copium. Plenty of room for this guy for you going forward, and a huge loss for the Oilers. Imagine getting this production for $2.3m.
Holloway would be your 4th highest point-getter.
Honestly, everyone could see Holloway exploding from a mile away, this was an epic bag fumble. Broberg, not as much IMO. And it is pretty humourous seeing the Oilers "incredible" off-season blow up in their faces. Pretty much every single get except for Podkolzin has been an anchor.
Oilers would be so much better if you pinched your nose and signed these guys and stood pat. The Bowman karma is real.
99% of Edmontonians knew he was going to have a season like this. Too bad our GM wasn’t one of them
He’s incredible. Always attacking the middle of the ice, high motor, physical. Next season he will be flirting with PPG. He’s been around there since Montgomery took over which coincides with him getting more ice time and the team playing better as a whole.
How is that?
Even if they'd signed Broberg (~$3-4M) and Holloway ($1.5-2M) prior to the offer sheets, that would still have been $5-6M in total cap.
Oilers spent $4M on Arvidsson and $3M on Skinner (for a total of $7M) and started the year essentially cap-maxed.
So if they'd kept them, they'd still have been only ~$1M below the cap.... maybe I'm answering my own question here, but are you proposing they'd then turn around and use Holloway & Broberg for Rantanen? I'm not sure even that math works.
I also think if they'd kept Holloway and had a young 19 goal winger, there'd be little interest in shiny objects like Rantanen.
I think our GM knew it too...
but Holloway was not the question. The question was: how do we upgrade our D.
Once Oiler management determined that "Broberg" was not a slam-dunk Plan A answer to that question, Plan B was to let them both walk and accrue cap space for the deadline and upgrade D (Walman) then.
Just because the decision has proven "wrong" in the eyes of fans with the benefit of hindsight, because Holloway (predicted by many of us) popped, doesn't mean there wasn't any rational thought going into it.
Put it another way: it's not that they got the "Holloway decision" wrong. It's that the offer sheets (and likely negotiations before then) made the question all about Broberg. The decision making priority was always about D-men and Plan B = Capspace (Walman) was determined to be a better bet than Plan A: Broberg.
Holloway just became a bystander casualty to that decision.
Labeling him a 45 point player is incredibly disingenuous. You're making it out like he has 45 points in a full season when in actuality he has 51 points in 68 games. If you cannot understand why 51 points in 68 games for a 23 year old who was just given his first real shot in the NHL is good I don't know what to tell you. He also has 43 points in 45 games since Montgomery took over. He has genuinely been playing near point per game pace for a majority of the season ever since a new coach took over and gave him a better shot. This is also ignoring all other aspects of the game. Holloway has excelled defensively and plays a great checking game too.
This is just mathematically NOT TRUE.
Oilers started the season with $750K in cap space, and that's with having their bottom-three rostered D-men (Emberson, Stecher and Dermot/Brown) making close to league minimum.
Matching on Holloway was simply not possible at that point. Not without blowing up any opportunity to upgrade their D. And that (I think we'd all agree) was more important than any winger, Holloway or otherwise.
Now if you want to go back to the WINGER decisions they made, then sure... signing Arvidsson and Skinner prior to the offer sheets were both horrible mistakes. (though I doubt an intellectually honest poll in September would have supported Holloway > Arvidsson > Skinner).
However by the time the offer sheets came around, Oilers had already placed their winger bets and the decision to let Broberg and Holloway walk was entirely driven out of concern for our D...
And that concern was addressed first by experimentation with Klingberg and then by deadline addition with Walman.
And that cap flexibility was ONLY enabled by letting the kids walk and saving/accruing the space. (for example we kicked the tires on Klingberg in the summer, but couldn't afford him given our available space... needed time for it to accrue)
And this is not revisionist logic... I argued it in Sept.
Yeah, I saw the double offer-sheets as a way for the Blues to ensure they got Broberg.
Lots of Oiler fans, as evidenced here or on SM, wanted them to sign Holloway based on his play in the 2024 SCP, energy, attitude, and potential.
afaik this was Ken Holland asleep at the wheel, or with 1 foot out the door. Totally embarrassing, but grats to the Blues.
“tHiS iS dELuSiOnAL cOpIuM”. They had zero cap space, and they still have zero cap space, and they are going to need every penny to be able to try to re-sign McDavid and Bouchard. They simply could not afford to pay Holloway and Broberg what they wanted. The decision to let them go was a calculated move done out of foresight. It’s sucks, but that’s the way she goes sometimes with the cap. Also, this has nothing to do with Bowman. This mess is the result of Nurse contract, among other mistakes.
They had zero cap space bc of Skinner deal.
They have zero cap space because of Nurse and Campbell.
Their evaluation/use/development of this player was way off. If they knew what he was/could become, they would have shipped other players out to fit him in. (Henrique, Arvidsson, etc.)
They phucked up, and yes it could honestly be the difference in EDM winning a cup or not. When the margins are that thin, a player like Holloway who plays the style he does and produces what he does @ his cap number is incredibly valuable.
They have no forward/scoring depth after the big 2 this year.
Facts aside, it's amazing to me how many Oilers fans wanted to back up the truck for Rantanen with that defense and goaltending.
Paying a one-dimensional winger $13M with McDrai extensions is a sure way to guarantee to never win a Cup with that core
