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

[CantHaveTkachev]

Was listening to one of Stauffer's segments from last week. He had the former GM, Brian Lawton on.

I had no idea that Holland's buddy, Armstrong, was inquiring about Broberg and Holloway during the regular season. He wanted to trade Buchnevich for them in a package deal.

Holland knowing this still didn't sign them. Nevermind both but at least sign one. Easy to read between the lines...

Another GM leaves this team with a nasty parting gift.

Why would the Oilers be quick to re-sign either in the regular season? They were mostly either injured, in the AHL or couldn’t crack the lineup
and I’m not sure Broberg was quick to re-sign considering he already requested a trade

 

[Soundwave]

Why would the Oilers be quick to re-sign either in the regular season? They were mostly either injured, in the AHL or couldn’t crack the lineup
and I’m not sure Broberg was quick to re-sign considering he already requested a trade

Yeah the major mistake was all the dead cap Holland piled onto our cap basically rendering the rise in the cap somewhat moot and leaving us in a bad spot.

We're effectively basically stuck at 82 million in a cap roof instead of the 88 million we should be at.

 

[nabob]

Of course. That's why you don't wait a month and a half sitting on a lowball offer. There was time to make a reasonable second offer to gage the player's intent. If it's clear they don't want to bridge a gap elevate activities. Discuss with the situation with player agent and determine if a sign and trade is an option. What teams might interest. Take away a second offer sheet threat again with a reasonable second offer to Holloway's camp. Prioritize this vulnerability early and don't try to smoke them out in a year with the first big cap bump and GM, industry and media talking offer sheet possibilities with a newly established flush and growing financial market.

Don't blow the budget on July 1. Josh Brown at $1 million x 3 or variations of that level player can wait.

EDIT: But I'd also have looked to move veteran Kulak to 2RD and discuss a clear development path for the player with a left side age 34 Ekholm, Nurse, and Kulak.

I have heard accounts that their offer to Holloway was in the 1.7 range. Which is very fair IMO. There is nothing they could have offered Broberg that would have made any sense that would have come close to what they knew he could get via an offer sheet. Geez if they would have moved Kulak as well then they’d really be in a pickle right now considering Broberg’s agent made it clear that an offer sheet was their plan. They had that right all along, no matter what the Oilers did. RFAs have rights.

If they had gone with your plan they might still have Holloway, but they wouldn’t have other players signed on/after July 1st who are better than him.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Was listening to one of Stauffer's segments from last week. He had the former GM, Brian Lawton on.

I had no idea that Holland's buddy, Armstrong, was inquiring about Broberg and Holloway during the regular season. He wanted to trade Buchnevich for them in a package deal.

Holland knowing this still didn't sign them. Nevermind both but at least sign one. Easy to read between the lines...

Another GM leaves this team with a nasty parting gift.

Jeff Jackson's hand was on the wheel for major decisions from time he was hired. He stepped in early to replace Wright; rode lead in hiring Knoblauch and convincing Coffey to coach; brought in development and analytics support guys. There's every reason to believe it included oversight for the trade deadline with an outgoing GM who was not returning.

Jackson's work as a super agent included bending the CBA to suit his clients best interests as we saw with the Brown contract and bonus. It's been embarrassing to listen to a team employee with a microphone lay blame at Holland's feet. A repeating habit to run over outgoing people. Post Holland the organization dropped low ball offers on their two young pedigree players and sat on it slow cooking for a month and a half.

Oilers leadership got caught misreading a changing market with big cap growth and alot of GM and media chatter about aggressive offer sheet a viable option. They knew Armstrong had asked about the two pedigree guys at deadline and yet chose to passively try to smoke out a long play lowball offers.

 

[nabob]

Was listening to one of Stauffer's segments from last week. He had the former GM, Brian Lawton on.

I had no idea that Holland's buddy, Armstrong, was inquiring about Broberg and Holloway during the regular season. He wanted to trade Buchnevich for them in a package deal.

Holland knowing this still didn't sign them. Nevermind both but at least sign one. Easy to read between the lines...

Another GM leaves this team with a nasty parting gift.

There’s zero reason for either of them to have signed early. Absolutely no potential benefit to either player. I don’t understand how so many can’t grasp this concept. Just because they weren’t UFAs doesn’t mean they don’t have any CBA rights and negotiating leverage. If either one of them had signed a value contract early their agents should have been fired immediately

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Yeah the major mistake was all the dead cap Holland piled onto our cap basically rendering the rise in the cap somewhat moot and leaving us in a bad spot.

We're effectively basically stuck at 82 million in a cap roof instead of the 88 million we should be at.

Connor Brown’s dead cap space is on Jackson
That was his client and he really wanted to bring him in

 

[Soundwave]

Connor Brown’s dead cap space is on Jackson
That was his client and he really wanted to bring him in

He wasn't an employee of the Oilers at that point, lol, it was his job to get his client the best deal possible, doesn't matter if he bends over a GM or not.

Holland was dumb enough to get taken to the cleaners, in retrospect, Holland was likely toast as GM right then and there, Jackson knew he was a bad GM and was never going to bring him back, not even a game 7 of a Cup Final could do it.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

He wasn't an employee of the Oilers at that point, lol, it was his job to get his client the best deal possible, doesn't matter if he bends over a GM or not.

Holland was dumb enough to get taken to the cleaners, in retrospect, Holland was likely toast as GM right then and there, Jackson knew he was a bad GM and was never going to bring him back, not even a game 7 of a Cup Final could do it.

Fair enough, but this has been Jackson’s team since last August
He was running the ship and firing all of Holland’s guys

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

I have heard accounts that their offer to Holloway was in the 1.7 range. Which is very fair IMO. There is nothing they could have offered Broberg that would have made any sense that would have come close to what they knew he could get via an offer sheet. Geez if they would have moved Kulak as well then they’d really be in a pickle right now considering Broberg’s agent made it clear that an offer sheet was their plan. They had that right all along, no matter what the Oilers did. RFAs have rights.

If they had gone with your plan they might still have Holloway, but they wouldn’t have other players signed on/after July 1st who are better than him.

I haven't seen or heard any Holloway offer at $1.7 million. The Broberg offer was $1.1 million and d gonna eat before middle roster winger. The Broberg camp ask was quoted as $1.8 million. In both cases, if you don't negotiate you fly blind and we see the result of a passive, hardline approach.

If there's no movement from Broberg's camp then you start actively exploring other options. Fact that Armstrong targeted both as a deadline return for his Russian forward should have got the attennas working to a real and present danger. Krug's injury report in mid-July about a prospect LTIR situation was another missed signal.

A cheap value Holloway is better than a 3rd round pick and a million dollars of development invested in the player. An important age on an old team which its leader talked from day 1 about building up a sustaining winning window. Cut off the legs early on one prospective offer sheet and maybe the external market is less bullish to drop an offer sheet. Be inactive on both and its double jeopardy which paid off with low risk acquisition costs.

Have a development plan that moves your veteran 3LD to babysit Nurse as a second pairing. Show a path for minutes and growth along with belief and active negotiation versus afterthought, maybe ya got a chance. Fail to act and the market with and did. Suddenly you're working with double and triple salary increases with viable roster openings and a young core that fits you.

Jackson and co missed alot of signs. Tried the way we've always done it to walk their organization into an inflationary lose lose situation.

 

[Soundwave]

Fair enough, but this has been Jackson’s team since last August
He was running the ship and firing all of Holland’s guys

The deed was done at that point though that's the terrible thing about dead cap is you effectively really can't do anything with it until its off your books.

In that compromised position I think they hoped they could do what they did with McLeod a couple of years ago and essentially force Broberg and Holloway to sign for cheaper in September-ish.

They got burned this time as someone actually put out two offer sheets. Lesson should be learned, having 6 mill of dead cap due to poor GMing can have consequences. You don't have that luxury when you're a Cup finalist and everyone is watching your talent play in June.

 

[North]

I don't think they care if three years from now he ends up becoming that defenseman. They're getting a high pedigree plug-and-play 23-year-old defenseman for a 2nd round pick. We weren't giving that guy up for anything short of a top 10 pick.

For a rebuilding or retooling team that's in a cap situation where teams won't easily return fire, this method of essentially poaching high-end prospects should be used. Because contracts should be paying for what a player produces. Not based off of what they've done in the past.

What has Broberg produced exactly to deserve this contract?

 

[The Hound]

I hope leaving home for MISSOURI of all places will be worth it, Dylan. See ya.

 

[Oilslick941611]

"Who cares about the Brown overage, it won't matter" they said, lol.

That extra 3.25 million sure woulda been nice to have.

Sure would. But still pass on broberg at 4.6

 

[Morpheus]

I hope leaving home for MISSOURI of all places will be worth it, Dylan. See ya.

30 year old arena as well.

 

[Oilhawks]

What has Broberg produced exactly to deserve this contract?

As someone that felt like one of the very few fans of the player, I’m a bit puzzled by how big of a loss some think Broberg is

His value was gone once he signed that ridiculous contract.

 

[gordonhught]

I hope leaving home for MISSOURI of all places will be worth it, Dylan. See ya.

 

[iCanada]

As someone that felt like one of the very few fans of the player, I’m a bit puzzled by how big of a loss some think Broberg is

His value was gone once he signed that ridiculous contract.

Yeah it's like I said at the beginning of this thread - right now the upside for both of these players was them being on value deals and potentially out playing them.

Broberg in particular, once you're at 4.6 AAV that's gone.

I think for where this team is at, gambling on one of Stecher or Emberson out playing their deals and having cap space for upgrading the other at the deadline with the 3.9 million difference between Holloway+Broberg+Ceci vs Podkolsin+Emberson+Stecher is a far better value, particularly when you include the 2nd and two 3rds we procured in the process.

Put it this way - That potentially let's you swing for a 7.8 million defender at the deadline, meanwhile you also get to keep the better of Emberson and Stecher while also having depth in the case of injury.

All in all, it's pretty clean work for getting shoved into a corner.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

As someone that felt like one of the very few fans of the player, I’m a bit puzzled by how big of a loss some think Broberg is

His value was gone once he signed that ridiculous contract.

Only evaluators whose opinion matters is Armstrong's. He showed belief in the player at trade deadline and fit his vision to retool around a young forward core with cap space and a shady LTIR d-man whose injury follows declining two prospective trades. Add the open spot on his shooting side with mentor partner options like Parayko. Drop a minor draft pick and knowledge worst case scenario is a walkaway after 1 year at one-third of price point.

The market determined this player's price point. Unfortunately the Oilers lost the window for a value contract price point with the hard miles million bucks of development already bought and paid for.

 

[SupremeTeam16]

I don’t think the Oilers D is as big a catastrophe as many are thinking. This team is going to have the puck a lot and overall they’ve greatly improved their team D that’s produced good results with a better then sum of its parts defensive unit which makes switching out some of the lower end pieces easier. I was confused about why they would trade a well liked guy in Ceci who they still could use, if they weren’t going to match the players, they could of made the cap work without trading Ceci or traded him after (though we found out the cap was also used to leverage more out of Stl) but I think it’s possible there were a few voices in the committee who wanted to target Emberson. Something that stood out to me was, I believe it was Curlock who called Emberson a modern day defenseman. Skates well, uses good position and a good stick to defend well. Uses a good gap to defend the rush and get possession going back the other way. Wouldn’t be surprises if he was more specifically targeted than just a throw in because they think his tools could fit that needed role if he can continue to trend how he did last season. Stetcher brings a little more experience and puck moving ability, he’s capable of playing elevated minutes if needed. Brown is huge, he’s not fun to play against in front of the net and corners, he hits, he blocks shots, he fights, he pk’s. He’s definitely limited but he’s a team guy through and through. He’s not a problem in a 6/7 role, he’ll fill Vinny’s shoes pretty well.

I think people are going to be surprised by what this group brings, of course an upgrade has to be the focus but they have time to see what they’ve got here.

 

[Oilhawks]

Only evaluators whose opinion matters is Armstrong's. He showed belief in the player at trade deadline and fit his vision to retool around a young forward core with cap space and a shady LTIR d-man whose injury follows declining two prospective trades. Add the open spot on his shooting side with mentor partner options like Parayko. Drop a minor draft pick and knowledge worst case scenario is a walkaway after 1 year at one-third of price point.

The market determined this player's price point. Unfortunately the Oilers lost the window for a value contract price point with the hard miles million bucks of development already bought and paid for.

Why do we care so much about the opinion of a guy willing to overpay a D man that had paltry NHL experience?

The offersheets happened, Bowman cleared cap to show they were able to match to squeeze this 'genius' GM just a little bit more. (I have stated before that I feel this GM is being heavily overrated, just because he struck out on other options to improve the team, he overpays via OS to get a 'maybe'. Wow)

I don't see why we have to belabor this so much, it's over, it happened, his value to the team was dead once he signed the OS. I don't how that's debatable

If he ends up being more than a low end middle pairing / high end bottom pairing guy, it will hurt.

And regarding the second bolded, when was this magical window going to be open? The player very clearly didn't want to sign a value contract

 

[Kolja]

I was a fan of Broberg. But having some money and picks for the deadline might be more important than hoping Bro lives up to the contract. As been pointed out, once the value of the contract is out the door, so is the player.

I'd say we can't review the outcome until after the trade deadline. What we do with the gained assets is stil up in the air.

 

[Oilhawks]

I don’t think the Oilers D is as big a catastrophe as many are thinking. This team is going to have the puck a lot and overall they’ve greatly improved their team D that’s produced good results with a better then sum of its parts defensive unit which makes switching out some of the lower end pieces easier. I was confused about why they would trade a well liked guy in Ceci who they still could use, if they weren’t going to match the players, they could of made the cap work without trading Ceci or traded him after (though we found out the cap was also used to leverage more out of Stl) but I think it’s possible there were a few voices in the committee who wanted to target Emberson. Something that stood out to me was, I believe it was Curlock who called Emberson a modern day defenseman. Skates well, uses good position and a good stick to defend well. Uses a good gap to defend the rush and get possession going back the other way. Wouldn’t be surprises if he was more specifically targeted than just a throw in because they think his tools could fit that needed role if he can continue to trend how he did last season. Stetcher brings a little more experience and puck moving ability, he’s capable of playing elevated minutes if needed. Brown is huge, he’s not fun to play against in front of the net and corners, he hits, he blocks shots, he fights, he pk’s. He’s definitely limited but he’s a team guy through and through. He’s not a problem in a 6/7 role, he’ll fill Vinny’s shoes pretty well.

I think people are going to be surprised by what this group brings, of course an upgrade has to be the focus but they have time to see what they’ve got here.

They lost the three worst D men on the team and some here are acting like the D corps was gutted. Absurd stuff IMO

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Why do we care so much about the opinion of a guy willing to overpay a D man that had paltry NHL experience?

The offersheets happened, Bowman cleared cap to show they were able to match to squeeze this 'genius' GM just a little bit more. (I have stated before that I feel this GM is being heavily overrated, just because he struck out on other options to improve the team, he overpays via OS to get a 'maybe'. Wow)

I don't see why we have to belabor this so much, it's over, it happened, his value to the team was dead once he signed the OS. I don't how that's debatable

If he ends up being more than a low end middle pairing / high end bottom pairing guy, it will hurt.

And regarding the second bolded, when was this magical window going to be open? The player very clearly didn't want to sign a value contract

The Oilers weren't victims. There's a series of choices and actions with the players involved that led to their decisions to sign offer sheets. Choosing to lowball and passively wait for them to sign as done in past years failed. The result was lost valued contracts of two young players who most here and everywhere were lauding for stepping up in Stanley Cup competition. They looked to be futures arriving to help foster a sustaining window Jackson said as basically his priority 1 on day 1.

It's a talent drain that this organization with these players needed and were planning on. We see young players choosing financial security first and foremost. Not greedy to do so.

As I've posted, had this organization acted more pro-actively, versus a passive low ball offer sat on for a month and a half of no activity, things might have been different. Sign Holloway early with some increase and maybe taking away the double jeopardy the offer sheet risk is scared away.

Jackson also prioritized development of this organization as a critical need. It is a factor in the path to the offer sheets and outcomes as well. Hard lesson for a team with a poor prospect pool and cutting into its asset pool again in future to address the loss of their top NHL young players.

The 'genius' your words has made a calculated bet on two NHL ready pedigree players. Unfortunately finding the perfect storm organization that let itself vulnerable and missed the signals to at least try to mitigate. Good managers have contingency plans to adapt to real world opportunities. He told the world in June offer sheets were a possibility.

If the compensation is a first round pick no bigs you take a quality pick and move on. Letting your organization get squeezed for a 2nd and 3rd is poor business.

 

[KCC]

Cam Dineen can replace broberg, yes, I’m serious. He will surprise if given the opportunity. Quote me on that moving forward. At his age I think he’s ready for a spot with the team.

 

[Fourier]

Of course. That's why you don't wait a month and a half sitting on a lowball offer. There was time to make a reasonable second offer to gage the player's intent. If it's clear they don't want to bridge a gap elevate activities. Discuss with the situation with player agent and determine if a sign and trade is an option. What teams might interest. Take away a second offer sheet threat again with a reasonable second offer to Holloway's camp. Prioritize this vulnerability early and don't try to smoke them out in a year with the first big cap bump and GM, industry and media talking offer sheet possibilities with a newly established flush and growing financial market.

Don't blow the budget on July 1. Josh Brown at $1 million x 3 or variations of that level player can wait.

EDIT: But I'd also have looked to move veteran Kulak to 2RD and discuss a clear development path for the player with a left side age 34 Ekholm, Nurse, and Kulak.

I think you know that I am not the conspiracy theory type. But reading between the lines, and even some of the actual lines, it sounds like Broberg's plan was not a decent contract for his current value but to get out of Dodge by hook or by crook. It sure looks like he was not happy with his prospects as an Oiler. BY playing it the way his camp did I think that is a big sign that he was not on board with the program of having him play the second pairing RHD slot.

Now if there was a "mistake" here it was in not getting something done with Holloway earlier. But even then it may not have been nearly as easy as it may seem. It sure looks like the Broberg OS plan was to get Holloway involved early as a pawn to force the Oilers into letting Broberg walk. Even listening to Holloway it sure sounds like he did not expect to end up a Blue. My guess is that if he could go back he would have probably not taken this route.

The Oilers have over the last few years really botched their cap management. Neither of the last two Gm's were at all creative in handling the cap. Most of this is on Holland but Chia still bears some blame. He was very reactive and not at all creative. A series of his moves also triggered moves by Holland , who may have been even less creative, that had cap implications even today. That left the Oilers vulnerable to a move like this. But pretty much every top contender has been in a similar position and has acted in a much similar manner without the result of an OS. Is it that St. Louis was set on breaking the norm, or was this a perfect opportunity since the player actually wanted out. Frankly, I now believe it was a combination of the two.

As to the Brown signing, as a hockey move that is still up in the air. But that contract can be fully buried so I don't think it had any significant impact on signing a guy like Holloway.