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Dylan Holloway 61gp 19g 26a 45pts

Larry Hanson said:
I was looking for a link to the tweet from Friedman and this post of yours from August came up in my search.


You'll have to take your own word for it (insert missing laughing emoji)

Or if you want to hear it from Friedman he discusses it here at 2:25 mark.
www.sportsnet.ca

32 Thoughts: The Podcast

Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman & Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.
www.sportsnet.ca
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haha... fair enough.

In any case, the broader points still stands...
1) I think everyone agrees the Oilers overplayed their hand and bungled the sequence by signing Skinner before signing their RFAs, and
2) If they'd kept them at a combined $3M, they still wouldn't be in a position to go chasing a Rantanen in any serious way (and arguably, nor would they need to).
 
bucks_oil said:
haha... fair enough.

In any case, the broader points still stands...
1) I think everyone agrees the Oilers overplayed their hand and bungled the sequence by signing Skinner before signing their RFAs, and
2) If they'd kept them at a combined $3M, they still wouldn't be in a position to go chasing a Rantanen in any serious way (and arguably, nor would they need to).
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This is about where I am with this.

Most of us are entrenched in our positions and that's okay.

I think it's the St. Louis Blues that lucked out getting both Broberg and Holloway. The stars aligned and it happened. Nothing against the Oilers (I've done my fair share of bashing lately) and, for the betterment of ice hockey, it would be great if McDavid lifted the Cup.

P.S. Love the City of Edmonton
 
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KeithIsActuallyBad said:
Draisatl's great but it's hard to say he'd be where he is right now without some assistance from McDavid. Easy to forget he wasn't ready out of draft and the Oilers jerked him around before mercifully ending his rookie season.
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You could say it's a 2 way street. Both guys helped one another.
 
The Oilers could use a player like him. He'd be the highest scoring forward behind McDavid and Draisaitl and he's only 23 making 2.3M until the end of next year.

What would it cost for the Oilers to acquire him? :sarcasm:
 
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ChicagoBlues said:
This is about where I am with this.

Most of us are entrenched in our positions and that's okay.

I think it's the St. Louis Blues that lucked out getting both Broberg and Holloway. The stars aligned and it happened. Nothing against the Oilers (I've done my fair share of bashing lately) and, for the betterment of ice hockey, it would be great if McDavid lifted the Cup.

P.S. Love the City of Edmonton
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Agree with this... though I think most Oiler fans would be somewhere within the camp of it was a screw up of management - we all agree on that, it's more the degree of screw up that gets debated.

For myself, I don't see it as egregious as others do... the St Louis offer was completely unprecedented for players with as limited experience as Broberg and Holloway. The screw up happened before Skinner (arguably the screw up WAS Skinner), but after Skinner they made the right, painful, call to let them go. At that point they had little choice.

There was significant risk on St. Louis and it has worked out in their favor. They deserve full credit.

The flip side of that is that it could have gone wrong for them, but the downside consequences to St. Louis were minimized by where they are in their contention window. Like does it really matter if they spend $4M too much for two years on two young players that maybe are only worth $3M? No, that's really of zero consequence to them.

On the flip side, if Edmonton took that risk and it turns out to be a mistake... ie Holloway and Broberg DIDN'T take the leap that most (incl Edm even) expected. If they played as they did in 2023/24 (in totality, incl the ups and downs), then spending a combined $7M on them would have been the death knell to the window for the next two years.

Ultimately it wasn't about Holloway at all. The Oilers were (arguably) one top-4 Dman away from the cup last year. If they placed a $4.6M bet on Broberg IN SEPT and get it wrong, they are cooked. Instead, they chose to bide their time, audition Emberson and Klingberg, save $750K cap in Sept and make a $4M investment in Walman at the deadline. That was the "play it safe" bet... and I think it's early to say whether that was the wrong bet for a contender.

Now the far more secondary issue of "depth scoring" was addressed by choosing Skinner/Arvidsson over Holloway... we've all seen that didn't work out so far, but it is far less consequential than getting the Dman decision wrong.

And of course, goes without saying our goaltending hasn't been as strong as last year, so it makes the whole pie look far less appetizing at the moment.
 
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bucks_oil said:
Those aren't the numbers I heard. I heard $1.5-1.8 for Holloway and I heard nothing for Broberg... except that there were rumors he still wanted out unless the team made a big commitment to him (which I assumed meant a reasonably significant bridge salary).

In any case, I think we can agree that before Skinner and Arvidsson they would have been kept, but I don't think it was a foregone conclusion that they'd have Rantanen level spare change lying around this deadline. A big (like bigger than $5-6M) was probably still out of the question...
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I heard Bromberg was being offered 2 years under a million and he wanted a 1 year around a million.

Holloway wanted a 1 year deal as well and was being offered 3 years at just above a million.

I mean the Oilers played a game and lost.
 
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KrisLetAngry said:
I heard Bromberg was being offered 2 years under a million and he wanted a 1 year around a million.

Holloway wanted a 1 year deal as well and was being offered 3 years at just above a million.

I mean the Oilers played a game and lost.
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Your numbers are off... @Larry Hanson provided the Friedman podcast a page back.

But your conclusion is correct. Oilers were doing what they, and many other teams have done (and to be honest gotten away with), which is strong-arm RFAs and focus on other matters first. It's a very old school approach and STANDARD PRACTICE which will now become a cautionary tale.

What they miscalculated was that any SCF team is going to be under a microscope for pro-scouts for 2 months and any diamonds in the rough become very well exposed. And that changes the risk profile for an RFA offer sheet dramatically.

Again, all credit to StLouis, but I think it is a little unfair to entirely blame a GM-less Oilers management team... Jackson hadn't really done this before, Holland was a foot out the door and Bowman was only a foot in, and all three parties were only weeks off a late playoff run and a scramble to be draft, and then UFA-frenzy ready... it made them an easy target.

I do think they had set clear priorities, but they were only going to be able to address 4 of the 5 below and the retro scope clearly shows that sequence mattered... a lot:
1) Draisaitl
2) Top-4 D
3) Scoring depth
4) RFA
5) Goalie

Drai dragged his feet, which delayed #4... opportunity for #3 presented itself and they jumped without really thinking how it would expose them. Then after that, it was clear they didn't see Broberg as the answer to #2, at least not enough to put all their $4.6M eggs in that basket.

At the end of the day they addressed #1 and #2 and frankly had bad luck on #3 (Arvidsson and Skinner have both been below any reasonable expectation).
 
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bucks_oil said:
Your numbers are off... @Larry Hanson provided the Friedman podcast a page back.

But your conclusion is correct. Oilers were doing what they, and many other teams have done (and to be honest gotten away with), which is strong-arm RFAs and focus on other matters first. It's a very old school approach and STANDARD PRACTICE which will now become a cautionary tale.

What they miscalculated was that any SCF team is going to be under a microscope for pro-scouts for 2 months and any diamonds in the rough become very well exposed. And that changes the risk profile for an RFA offer sheet dramatically.

Again, all credit to StLouis, but I think it is a little unfair to entirely blame a GM-less Oilers management team... Jackson hadn't really done this before, Holland was a foot out the door and Bowman was only a foot in, and all three parties were only weeks off a late playoff run and a scramble to be draft, and then UFA-frenzy ready... it made them an easy target.

I do think they had set clear priorities, but they were only going to be able to address 4 of the 5 below and the retro scope clearly shows that sequence mattered... a lot:
1) Draisaitl
2) Top-4 D
3) Scoring depth
4) RFA
5) Goalie

Drai dragged his feet, which delayed #4... opportunity for #3 presented itself and they jumped without really thinking how it would expose them. Then after that, it was clear they didn't see Broberg as the answer to #2, at least not enough to put all their $4.6M eggs in that basket.

At the end of the day they addressed #1 and #2 and frankly had bad luck on #3 (Arvidsson and Skinner have both been below any reasonable expectation).
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Larry Hanson said:
It was reported (EF I think?) that Broberg was asking 1.8M and Holloway was asking 1.2M before other teams had a chance to make an offer, that's 3M combined or the same amount they gave Skinner. Also, if they were signed to those contracts they never would have gotten an offer sheet and could have been traded though it probably would have been best to keep them at those low cap hits.
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Eh that's close enough we are talking chump change.
Oilers got Walman and if they get the cup. Who care.
 
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KrisLetAngry said:
Eh that's close enough we are talking chump change.
Oilers got Walman and if they get the cup. Who care.
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Agree, much rather have Holloway+Broberg at $3M vs shell-of-Skinner at $3M...

Having said that, every few hundred thousand mattered a lot for us last summer, so a big difference between your $2M and Friedman's $3M total...

... by deadline time that difference is Walman vs no-Walman, which underscores my point of them not willing to put all the eggs in the Broberg basket. They wanted a D-upgrade and pretty clear they weren't convinced he was 100% it (or they wanted cake and eat it too).
 
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bucks_oil said:
Agree, much rather have Holloway+Broberg at $3M vs shell-of-Skinner at $3M...

Having said that, every few hundred thousand mattered a lot for us last summer, so a big difference between your $2M and Friedman's $3M total...

... by deadline time that difference is Walman vs no-Walman, which underscores my point of them not willing to put all the eggs in the Broberg basket. They wanted a D-upgrade and pretty clear they weren't convinced he was 100% it (or they wanted cake and eat it too).
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One could argue you lose out on one of the UFA forwards and now you don't have a defensemen sign so that's some money sent down.

Walman could still be added. They just dragged the negotiations on too long.
 
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