Confirmed with Link: Oilers Do Not Match Broberg ($4.58M X2) & Holloway ($2.29M x 2) Offer Sheets | Oilers acquire STL 3rd '28 & Paul Fischer for Futures

[Tobias Kahun]

Its not about whats magical or about fixating on the top 4.
Although you seem intent on making this about a top 3 when none of your examples included a player like Nurse. A player who is in the first teir of contracts and should be in the 2nd tier of contracts.

Yes Hyman was a value contract but he had an obvious career year last season. Will that continue at the same rate this season...likely not.
Will Ekholm (who will be 35 years old before the playoffs start) continue to perfom a like a top pairing Dman this season?
Maybe. There could likely be a dropoff there too.
RNH hasnt really been a value contract when you take out the outlier that was 2022/23.
With that outlier removed the last 5 seasons he has averaged 56 points.
Ekholm will be a UFA in 2026 so they potentially will have to replace a very cheap top pairing Dman with a more expensive player to fill that top pairing LHD role as well.
There will still be 4 players in the 2nd teir once McDavid signs.
So as i have said previously...4 players in each tier.

So really its about what the team has dedicated to 2 levels of contracts as it pertains to the cap.
The Oilers will have 4 players in excess of $9M. McDavid, Drai, Bouchard and Nurse.
That in all liklihood could possibly total to just under $50M as McDavid could easily make $15M and I see no logical reason to pay Bouchard less than Nurse on his next contract.
The next Tier has Hyman, RNH, Ekholm and the 4th player will be Stuart Skinner who will be an RFA when McDavid 1st year of his new contract.

In addition I also dont for a second think thats its a foregone conclusion that the cap is going to keep going up (the short term world wide economic realities suggest otherwise...but thats a conversation for a different thread).

The point is when you factor in both tiers of players (which is where my focus is) that likely puts this team over $70M.
So the remaining roster (18 players) has to be completed with ~ $26M available.
Many of those players are going to require $3M/$2M contracts and this team doesnt have a lot of dmen in the system who will take up League minimum contracts.

So the example you put forth dont really provide an accurate comparble to the situation this team is looking at and I completely disagree with your assertion that the Nurse contract is irrelevant.
IMO its going to be very relevant.

5.125m for 56 point average is pretty value at this Salary Cap.

Hyman is also a value contract even if he regresses.

 

[guymez]

5.125m for 56 point average is pretty value at this Salary Cap.

Hyman is also a value contract even if he regresses.

Sure...okay. Lets run with that.
That still doesnt negate the other points I made in that post.

 

[mcdingdong]

Its not about whats magical or about fixating on the top 4.
Although you seem intent on making this about a top 3 when none of your examples included a player like Nurse. A player who is in the first teir of contracts and should be in the 2nd tier of contracts.

Yes Hyman was a value contract but he had an obvious career year last season. Will that continue at the same rate this season...likely not.
Will Ekholm (who will be 35 years old before the playoffs start) continue to perfom a like a top pairing Dman this season?
Maybe. There could likely be a dropoff there too.
RNH hasnt really been a value contract when you take out the outlier that was 2022/23.
With that outlier removed the last 5 seasons he has averaged 56 points.
Ekholm will be a UFA in 2026 so they potentially will have to replace a very cheap top pairing Dman with a more expensive player to fill that top pairing LHD role as well.
There will still be 4 players in the 2nd teir once McDavid signs.
So as i have said previously...4 players in each tier.

So really its about what the team has dedicated to 2 levels of contracts as it pertains to the cap.
The Oilers will have 4 players in excess of $9M. McDavid, Drai, Bouchard and Nurse.
That in all liklihood could possibly total to just under $50M as McDavid could easily make $15M and I see no logical reason to pay Bouchard less than Nurse on his next contract.
The next Tier has Hyman, RNH, Ekholm and the 4th player will be Stuart Skinner who will be an RFA when McDavid 1st year of his new contract.

In addition I also dont for a second think thats its a foregone conclusion that the cap is going to keep going up (the short term world wide economic realities suggest otherwise...but thats a conversation for a different thread).

The point is when you factor in both tiers of players (which is where my focus is) that likely puts this team over $70M.
So the remaining roster (18 players) has to be completed with ~ $26M available.
Many of those players are going to require $3M/$2M contracts and this team doesnt have a lot of dmen in the system who will take up League minimum contracts.

So the example you put forth dont really provide an accurate comparble to the situation this team is looking at and I completely disagree with your assertion that the Nurse contract is irrelevant.
IMO its going to be very relevant.

A short, but by no means exhaustive, list of what is wrong with your post.

-Hyman doesn't need to score 50 goals a year to be a value contract. Not even close.
-Despite removing Nuge's career best output to make him 'only' a 56 pt player, he is still on a value contract.
-sorting your roster into arbitrary bins (tier 1, tier 2, etc) to try and make points about team-building is a pointless exercise for myriad reasons. Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
-Finally, the bolded: please review the actual drivers of HRR and how the cap is calculated. I sympathize if your household is struggling due to "world wide economic realities" but that really has very little to do with the salary cap and how it is calculated. There is almost zero chance we are not escalating the salary cap the maximum percentage each year for the next few years, full stop.

I hate the Nurse contract as much as the next guy but I am not going to chicken little small stuff like the aforementioned points to make it seem catastrophic. We have space for the necessities provided we get smart, forward-looking management decisions over the next few years.

 

[guymez]

A short, but by no means exhaustive, list of what is wrong with your post.

-Hyman doesn't need to score 50 goals a year to be a value contract. Not even close.
-Despite removing Nuge's career best output to make him 'only' a 56 pt player, he is still on a value contract.
-sorting your roster into arbitrary bins (tier 1, tier 2, etc) to try and make points about team-building is a pointless exercise for myriad reasons. Talk about missing the forest for the trees.
-Finally, the bolded: please review the actual drivers of HRR and how the cap is calculated. I sympathize if your household is struggling due to "world wide economic realities" but that really has very little to do with the salary cap and how it is calculated. There is almost zero chance we are not escalating the salary cap the maximum percentage each year for the next few years, full stop.

I hate the Nurse contract as much as the next guy but I am not going to chicken little small stuff like the aforementioned points to make it seem catastrophic. We have space for the necessities provided we get smart, forward-looking management decisions over the next few years.

So I dont have to repeat myself see post 5727.

Regaring the cap.
The economic relaities have nothing to do with my household. We shall see how it unolfds and how it affects the NHL. I strongly suspect that it wont be quite as rosy as you and others are projecting.

 

[Louis Cypher]

They did try but they didn’t want to. They wanted to wait for an offer sheet.

They didn't offer very much. Both players were looking for more. The offer sheets were more that twice what the players wanted from the Oil.

 

[brentashton]

They didn't offer very much. Both players were looking for more. The offer sheets were more that twice what the players wanted from the Oil.

Broberg was offered an amount that was clearly outside of his market value by a very significant amount. The Oilers were never offering that during the course of normal negotiations. If they had, this place would have been worse than when Bowman was hired.

 

[The Nuge]

It's not ideal but the Oilers could run an extra winger and alternate McDavid, Draisaitl, Nuge, and Henrique in that spot.

Tyler Johnson on a $1M or less deal would be very good.

True. You could even run the Woody 11/7 to get an extra PK dman

 

[tiger_80]

Sign Dallas Eakins to teach them swarm defense. Every generation has to have that experience.

 

[Fourier]

So I dont have to repeat myself see post 5727.

Regaring the cap.
The economic relaities have nothing to do with my household. We shall see how it unolfds and how it affects the NHL. I strongly suspect that it wont be quite as rosy as you and others are projecting.

@mcdingdong answered the rest of your previous post as well as I could have so I'll just address this one.

I already showed you that with current revenues alone the cap should be at least $94M with a 6% cap on escrow. Add in roughly $1.2M more for Utah over Arizona and you are at $95M with no revenue growth at all.

You seem to think that there is some huge pending economic collapse on the horizon. Maybe you have a crystal ball but that is certainly not what is being predicted in North America. Somewhat slower growth in the US and perhaps a small recession in Canada would be the downside expectation right now but with the prospect of perhaps even rapid changes in the Fed and the BoC's rates most economists actually see growth as the more likely scenario. In fact the IMF has Canada leading the G7 in growth in 2025 with the US in second. But here is the point: Even after the financial crisis the NHL still grew its revenues. In fact the only non-lockout year that revenues decreased was due to covid. And even while covid was still a factor the NHL still managed to rapidly grow its revenues. Over the 20 years the cap has been in place NHL revenue growth has been pretty much recession proof. Part of this is just baked in. Many of the NHL's big sponsorship agreements have growth factored into their contracts. Ticket prices tend to never go down but rise despite the economic situation. Perhaps at a lesser rate, but the trajectory has always been up. And as I said, the NHL has been ultra aggressive in finding new revenue streams of late with plans for that to continue. They grew sponsorship by 10%+ last year alone.

And finally, you may want to read the current CBA. Cap growth is outlined in this CBA. It sets a maximum and a minimum that is based on the average growth in revenue over the previous two years. Based on how much revenue has increased over the last few years that average will exceed the 5% threshold at least until the first year of the McDavid deal regardless of any economic slow down. So that alone pretty much guarantees 5% per year. And with revenues already high enough to support even more of an increase there is a reasonable chance that the NHLPA and the NHL will agree to more.

So you can be as skeptical as you want to be and we never know if there is another covid-type catastrophe on the horizon, but NHL GM's know what I have written above and their planning is based on that.

 

[powerserge]

Again, you are using the sum of the salaries of the top 4 players as some magic formula. In this case, one flaw is that that Oilers top three of McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard are simply better than the other teams top three. The closest trio today is McKinnon, Rantanen and Makar who will be only a few million less than the Oiler trio.

The second flaw is that I don't see a lot of teams with a forward who scored 79 goals over the regular season and playoffs combined on a $5.5M deal. In fact, here is the list of players who have averaged more than 40 goals per year over the last two years who make less than $9.5M.

Zack Hyman

Which contenders have a defenseman as good as Ekholm making what these days is #3 money. Then add Nuge at $5.125M. And all of a sudden your top 7 are making no more than other teams top 7 relative to the cap. Colorado is paying Casey Middlestad more than both Nuge and Hyman. A broken Landeskog has a $7M cap hit and Nichushkin is at $6.125M.

The way you manage your cap is to get your best players signed with as many good contracts as possible. The reality is that a fast rising cap will make all 6 of these top 7 contracts good to great value for the money. The fact is they have one bad contract and even that one is often over stated. Nurse these days is probably a $7M defenseman.

You are missing the most important factor (IMO), once the new deals are signed aside from Bouch is we no longer have a young core. Know you are good at studying the cap, where we disagree on mainly is factoring age. As players get older it should be factored in to be prudent with your cap.

Skinner wants to play with great players and finally make the playoffs, for once. He went from 9 million to 3 million, that's a huge pay cut. That's a true discount. I am certain it is also strategic on his part to play with McD/Drai, boost his numbers, get a bigger contract the following year.

Hyman is an outlier, everyone is surprised by his performance, he has actually gotten better with age, which is rare. It would be fair to see a drop off (not maintaining those numbers) and we have Skinner and Ard to help out. Eks is 34, hopefully he can play top 2 for 1 more year, maybe 2. It would be fair to see him drop off. As you get older it gets more and more difficult to maintain the same high level of play. If only Nurse can find his game. Father time can catch up with any player at any time, we have seen it time and time again. Whether at 30 or at 35, there is a drop off.

When signing players to contracts the most important thing is buying their PRIME UFA years. Usually that's 23-30 yrs old. If 30 + they should get paid less, age and risk is higher.

Stamkos at 34 took less to play than last year as he should even though cap has gone up. Tampa let go of their franchise player. They decided not to match or come close because while he is still good, he's a declining player and they want to get younger not older. And mitigate their risk on an aging player. Makes perfect sense, even though you upset the fan base, it's a business. And we wouldn't even be keeping McD/Drai til they are 34, they will be like 37-38 with 8 yr deals.

How many prime years are we buying? This is where we differ. No one knows for certain how many prime years we are buying, great players will stretch their best years out. Say we buy 4 prime years for McD/Drai where they stretch it out to be at the very top of their game til 34. If we luck out, there is risk in doing so, we are getting them at their best for half their contracts. So IMO, it is not prudent to just open your wallet as the GM on an aging core. SB should have experience with this, Kane dropped off, Toews especially dropped off. Our guys will drop off. If they play hard ball, our guys will be paid what they want. Fan base wants them here for life so there is that pressure. We'll see if $ trumps, or if they give themselves chance after chance to win and not cap strap the team. Simple. We just saw evidence of our team being cap strapped and what happens.

 

[OilerTyler]

5.125m for 56 point average is pretty value at this Salary Cap.

Hyman is also a value contract even if he regresses.

Keep in mind that’s a 56 point average if you remove his best season (for some reason) but also keep the year in which he only scored 35 points because he was injured. It’s also weird to talk about his last five years when he’s only been on this contract for three. Talk about cherry picking stats.

Nuge is an absolute bargain. Since starting this contract he has scored 221 points in 225 games. That’s 73 points per year and an 80 point pace.

 

[Fourier]

You are missing the most important factor (IMO), once the new deals are signed aside from Bouch is we no longer have a young core. Know you are good at studying the cap, where we disagree on mainly is factoring age. As players get older it should be factored in to be prudent with your cap.

Skinner wants to play with great players and finally make the playoffs, for once. He went from 9 million to 3 million, that's a huge pay cut. That's a true discount. I am certain it is also strategic on his part to play with McD/Drai, boost his numbers, get a bigger contract the following year.

Hyman is an outlier, everyone is surprised by his performance, he has actually gotten better with age, which is rare. It would be fair to see a drop off (not maintaining those numbers) and we have Skinner and Ard to help out. Eks is 34, hopefully he can play top 2 for 1 more year, maybe 2. It would be fair to see him drop off. As you get older it gets more and more difficult to maintain the same high level of play. If only Nurse can find his game. Father time can catch up with any player at any time, we have seen it time and time again. Whether at 30 or at 35, there is a drop off.

When signing players to contracts the most important thing is buying their PRIME UFA years. Usually that's 23-30 yrs old. If 30 + they should get paid less, age and risk is higher.

Stamkos at 34 took less to play than last year as he should even though cap has gone up. Tampa let go of their franchise player. They decided not to match or come close because while he is still good, he's a declining player and they want to get younger not older. And mitigate their risk on an aging player. Makes perfect sense, even though you upset the fan base, it's a business. And we wouldn't even be keeping McD/Drai til they are 34, they will be like 37-38 with 8 yr deals.

How many prime years are we buying? This is where we differ. No one knows for certain how many prime years we are buying, great players will stretch their best years out. Say we buy 4 prime years for McD/Drai where they stretch it out to be at the very top of their game til 34. If we luck out, there is risk in doing so, we are getting them at their best for half their contracts. So IMO, it is not prudent to just open your wallet as the GM on an aging core. SB should have experience with this, Kane dropped off, Toews especially dropped off. Our guys will drop off. If they play hard ball, our guys will be paid what they want. Fan base wants them here for life so there is that pressure. We'll see if $ trumps, or if they give themselves chance after chance to win and not cap strap the team. Simple. We just saw evidence of our team being cap strapped and what happens.

I fully understand that the core is aging. There is nothing that can change that nor does it have anything to do with how much guys like McDavid and Draisaitl make. If they took a discount would that make them younger??? Or are you arguing that they pay them more on a shorter term because it is term that will keep the AAV down.

McDavid is the key to the length of the Oiler window. He is only 27. Great players like McDavid typically are still near the top of the league well into there 30's. Gretzky with a wrecked back led the Rangers in scoring by 28 points over Pat Lafontaine at age 36-37 one year after putting up 97 points and 20 more in 15 playoff games. Lemieux had 91 points in 67 games in 2002-2003 at age 36.

As it is the current core group may only have 4-5 or so more years before you start to make changes. Ekholm is the oldest of the core at 34. But he actually has low milage on him and is a heady defenseman who seems to be in fantastic shape. There is no reason why he could not play at a high level for 4-5 more years. In that time Bouchard should improve as well to at least partially compensate for any drop off.

Hyman is another guy with low milage. He has only played 580 NHL games and while he is quite physical in his approach he should have 4 more years in him where he can score 25+ goals. Nuge is a guy like Pavaelski whose game is based on his smarts not his physical prowess. He should have 5 more years as well.

Tampa had similar issues to manage. Yet they found a way to renew. Oiler management has actually made some decent moves to address extending the window. The trade they made that brought in Savoie and picking O'Rielly this year are clearly moves made to address the future. Other moves will happen as well. Players will want to come play with McDavid et al. But even if they don't, what is the alternative? The Oilers like every other team will go as far as their best players take them. And right now the Oilers best players are at a level that allows the team to be contenders into the future even with their pending contracts. Better that and see the team eventually age than retool now to because you want to avoid spending too much on the top 4 guys.

 

[guymez]

@mcdingdong answered the rest of your previous post as well as I could have so I'll just address this one.

I already showed you that with current revenues alone the cap should be at least $94M with a 6% cap on escrow. Add in roughly $1.2M more for Utah over Arizona and you are at $95M with no revenue growth at all.

You seem to think that there is some huge pending economic collapse on the horizon. Maybe you have a crystal ball but that is certainly not what is being predicted in North America. Somewhat slower growth in the US and perhaps a small recession in Canada would be the downside expectation right now but with the prospect of perhaps even rapid changes in the Fed and the BoC's rates most economists actually see growth as the more likely scenario. In fact the IMF has Canada leading the G7 in growth in 2025 with the US in second. But here is the point: Even after the financial crisis the NHL still grew its revenues. In fact the only non-lockout year that revenues decreased was due to covid. And even while covid was still a factor the NHL still managed to rapidly grow its revenues. Over the 20 years the cap has been in place NHL revenue growth has been pretty much recession proof. Part of this is just baked in. Many of the NHL's big sponsorship agreements have growth factored into their contracts. Ticket prices tend to never go down but rise despite the economic situation. Perhaps at a lesser rate, but the trajectory has always been up. And as I said, the NHL has been ultra aggressive in finding new revenue streams of late with plans for that to continue. They grew sponsorship by 10%+ last year alone.

And finally, you may want to read the current CBA. Cap growth is outlined in this CBA. It sets a maximum and a minimum that is based on the average growth in revenue over the previous two years. Based on how much revenue has increased over the last few years that average will exceed the 5% threshold at least until the first year of the McDavid deal regardless of any economic slow down. So that alone pretty much guarantees 5% per year. And with revenues already high enough to support even more of an increase there is a reasonable chance that the NHLPA and the NHL will agree to more.

So you can be as skeptical as you want to be and we never know if there is another covid-type catastrophe on the horizon, but NHL GM's know what I have written above and their planning is based on that.

I think that you need to reread my last couple of posts because you just went off on an unecessary tangent that doesnt address the crux of what I worte about.

While we may disagree on the projections I still based all of my calculations on the rosy economic scenario you are committed to.

The Oilers pending cap issues I detailed in my previous responses includes the 5% increases you suggested earlier.
So really nothing in the above post addressed anything of note.

In my posts I took into account the 5% annual increase in the cap...projected salary increases...pending RFA's and potential dropoff in performance due to wear and tear.
Please do tell which part of all of what I actually posted was/is entirely unreasonable.

 

[powerserge]

I fully understand that the core is aging. There is nothing that can change that nor does it have anything to do with how much guys like McDavid and Draisaitl make. If they took a discount would that make them younger??? Or are you arguing that they pay them more on a shorter term because it is term that will keep the AAV down.

McDavid is the key to the length of the Oiler window. He is only 27. Great players like McDavid typically are still near the top of the league well into there 30's. Gretzky with a wrecked back led the Rangers in scoring by 28 points over Pat Lafontaine at age 36-37 one year after putting up 97 points and 20 more in 15 playoff games. Lemieux had 91 points in 67 games in 2002-2003 at age 36.

As it is the current core group may only have 4-5 or so more years before you start to make changes. Ekholm is the oldest of the core at 34. But he actually has low milage on him and is a heady defenseman who seems to be in fantastic shape. There is no reason why he could not play at a high level for 4-5 more years. In that time Bouchard should improve as well to at least partially compensate for any drop off.

Hyman is another guy with low milage. He has only played 580 NHL games and while he is quite physical in his approach he should have 4 more years in him where he can score 25+ goals. Nuge is a guy like Pavaelski whose game is based on his smarts not his physical prowess. He should have 5 more years as well.

Tampa had similar issues to manage. Yet they found a way to renew. Oiler management has actually made some decent moves to address extending the window. The trade they made that brought in Savoie and picking O'Rielly this year are clearly moves made to address the future. Other moves will happen as well. Players will want to come play with McDavid et al. But even if they don't, what is the alternative? The Oilers like every other team will go as far as their best players take them. And right now the Oilers best players are at a level that allows the team to be contenders into the future even with their pending contracts. Better that and see the team eventually age than retool now to because you want to avoid spending too much on the top 4 guys.

Yes it does matter. Kane was a star player, the best of the best. After 31-32 there is a drop off and he is playing less games. Still a good player. he was making 10.5 mil now he's getting 3-4 million. In 2015 when he signed his deal cap was 69 million, now it is 88. He's still a 20 goal scorer, why is he not making 10 million still, cap has gone up, teams should be able to afford it. Cap has cought up with his salary.

10.5 million to 2.75 last year to 4 this year. Why, because he is older.

Please stop going back to the old days with all your comparisons. NHL is stronger, more skilled and faster than ever. Older players are not going to be able to keep up like they did back in the day. You are basing your decent moves on unknowns, we will see how it plays out but you cannot bet on it. Analysts say we have one of the worst prospect pools in the league and we don't have much for picks which is yet another reason not to go all in to reinvest in an aging core. Take less to keep the core together or there will need to be decisions made as we can't keep them all.

I don't know where you get your info on Hyms and Eks. Hyms plays a hard game, no quit, never takes a night off. That's high mileage. Eks same thing.

Keith was the best of the best but at 35-36 there was drop off. We had him here in his upper 30's, he was still good and managed to stay around because he is smart and very mobile or father time would have taken him earlier. Clear drop off after 35. Far from the same player and this is an elite player. Don't want to argue, it is unfair to project and expect our guys to maintain their same level of play in the mid and for sure late 30's. Did Chara drop off, did Pavelski drop off as older players, sure did. These guys were all playing for pretty cheap... and Oilers fans are fine to be paying McD/Drai 16 and 14 million dollars at 38 years old. All I can say is I hope not.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

I think that you need to reread my last couple of posts because you just went off on an unecessary tangent that doesnt address the crux of what I worte about.

While we may disagree on the projections I still based all of my calculations on the rosy economic scenario you are committed to.

The Oilers pending cap issues I detailed in my previous responses includes the 5% increases you suggested earlier.
So really nothing in the above post addressed anything of note.

In my posts I took into account the 5% annual increase in the cap...projected salary increases...pending RFA's and potential dropoff in performance due to wear and tear.
Please do tell which part of all of what I actually posted was/is entirely unreasonable.

He addressed everything.

With zero economic growth the cap would be higher than your projections and thoughts on it.

 

[guymez]

He addressed everything.

With zero economic growth the cap would be higher than your projections and thoughts on it.

If you have been paying attention to the exchange you would know that we have already previously agreed on a potential 5% annual increase.
So just post your laughing emoji and move along.

 

[Louis Cypher]

Broberg was offered an amount that was clearly outside of his market value by a very significant amount. The Oilers were never offering that during the course of normal negotiations. If they had, this place would have been worse than when Bowman was hired.

You're missing the point. It was reported Broberg wanted 1.8 per. Oilers didn't want to go that high (spent all their money). STL offered a deal he couldn't refuse and we couldn't match. Number was lower on Holloway but still same situation. What I'm saying is we should have taken care of our guys first before running out at getting an expensive forward with injury history.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

You're missing the point. It was reported Broberg wanted 1.8 per. Oilers didn't want to go that high (spent all their money). STL offered a deal he couldn't refuse and we couldn't match. Number was lower on Holloway but still same situation. What I'm saying is we should have taken care of our guys first before running out at getting an expensive forward with injury history.

you're right, but no one on planet Earth thought a team would offer Broberg 4 times what he's worth based on 10 playoff games AND offer sheet another player at the same time

it's unprecedented

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

True. You could even run the Woody 11/7 to get an extra PK dman

 

[powerserge]

you're right, but no one on planet Earth thought a team would offer Broberg 4 times what he's worth based on 10 playoff games AND offer sheet another player at the same time

it's unprecedented

For sure agreed, especially OS on two players. Don't leave yourself open, leave some extra cap to make sure. Learning lesson once again going back to Adam Graves.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

You're missing the point. It was reported Broberg wanted 1.8 per. Oilers didn't want to go that high (spent all their money). STL offered a deal he couldn't refuse and we couldn't match. Number was lower on Holloway but still same situation. What I'm saying is we should have taken care of our guys first before running out at getting an expensive forward with injury history.

Broberg was not signing here. He wanted out.

 

[bobbythebrain]

An economic collapse will not affect the NHL or the cap. People will always spend money on habits and hobbies

Covid showed us that. People were dropping thousands on seats to Metallica this weekend

The cap will rise 100%

 

[Stoneman89]

Sign Dallas Eakins to teach them swarm defense. Every generation has to have that experience.

There are many other teams out there that have not had the Dallas Eakin "experience." Let them all have their chance with him first before you bring him back.

 

[Yuke]

You're missing the point. It was reported Broberg wanted 1.8 per. Oilers didn't want to go that high (spent all their money). STL offered a deal he couldn't refuse and we couldn't match. Number was lower on Holloway but still same situation. What I'm saying is we should have taken care of our guys first before running out at getting an expensive forward with injury history.

99% of the fans thought JJ was an all-star GM after free agency. He has proven them wrong

 

[La Bamba]

You're missing the point. It was reported Broberg wanted 1.8 per. Oilers didn't want to go that high (spent all their money). STL offered a deal he couldn't refuse and we couldn't match. Number was lower on Holloway but still same situation. What I'm saying is we should have taken care of our guys first before running out at getting an expensive forward with injury history.

Getting Arvidsson & Skinner for a combined 7M cap hit is a good value move. Acquiring these type of guys at the TDL would cost a lot of assets. Look at what Henrique cost (bonus they were able to retain him on a value contract). I would do that all over again. The team needs contributors now. Drai had no wingers to play with last year (played with McLeod and Foegele...) No guarantee Holloway ever becomes as productive as Skinner/Arvidsson/Henrique.

What happened with Holloway & Broberg is unfortunate but after all the combined free agent signings, trades, offer sheets this summer, the Oilers are a wealthier team in assets