Rumor: Rumors & Proposals Thread | Where's the Beef?

[McShogun99]

If only it were EA Sports and he could force Broberg to sign a contract.

He did sign it. Unfortunately it was for 4.6 million....

 

[K1984]

A thread with 14 posts is considered some kind of evidence to you? Ironic, yes, that an org that is pure shit at prospect development also lost Lavoie since. How the f*** is it hindsight to mention Broberg had a sublime playoffs and all teams noticed that and were watching with anticipation?

The Oilers f***ed this over. The required copium here is to stick heads in sand and ignore it happened.

Claiming that we should have dropped Desharnais in the middle of last season to give Broberg a spot is the definition of hindsight. Saying "but he was good in the playoffs!!!" is hindsight.

"We should have got rid of Desharnais instead!" appears to be your argument, which is completely hindsight based.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Claiming that we should have dropped Desharnais in the middle of last season to give Broberg a spot is the definition of hindsight. Saying "but he was good in the playoffs!!!" is hindsight.

"We should have got rid of Desharnais instead!" appears to be your argument, which is completely hindsight based.

Blues offer sheeting the player and obtaining him must be hindsight too. The world is hindsight

Look several teams were drooling at the prospect that the Oilers were sleepwalking on the player and were lining up to get him to sign an offersheet. Blues had enough Savvy to co-offersheet Holloway to get on radar making it a double whammy.

The Oilers are awful at retaining/developing prospects. How is this even up for debate?

My argument is that an org did not properly recognize the value of a potential star D at any point, and lost him outright due to that, and due to abysmal cap management.

In anycase the Oilers had the full scope of assessing Brobergs play up to the end of the SC final. Its interesting that other clubs did their homework but not the Oilers who drafted and had Broberg....oh well..

 

[TB12]

I remember last year (or maybe 2 years ago) I said that from talking to people in the Oil organization they were very high on Broberg, and he was often one of their best D in practice, but they thought that he lacked confidence in games. But they were very high on him.

I got a lot of posters coming after me for that pretty innocuous statement saying "well if he cant do it in games then he's useless, bustberg, etc".

My how the turntables...

 

[K1984]

Blues offer sheeting the player and obtaining him must be hindsight too. The world is hindsight

Look several teams were drooling at the prospect that the Oilers were sleepwalking on the player and were lining up to get him to sign an offersheet. Blues had enough Savvy to co-offersheet Holloway to get on radar making it a double whammy.

The Oilers are awful at retaining/developing prospects. How is this even up for debate?

You're moving the goalposts.

The discussion was about the opportunity Broberg got here, and how the organization f***ed it up. My argument was that he never did enough to justify a firm spot in the NHL until this playoff, when it basically became too late due to contractual circumstance. Then I was told that it was nonsense, and that Desharnais should have been shipped out last year to give him a chance. That opinion is solely, 100% supported by hindsight and hindsight only.

If anything, we should have given Broberg less time in the NHL, not more. He died on the vine in the NHL with players justifiably playing ahead of him in the lineup. He probably doesn't perform well in the playoffs this year had he not gone down and actually rounded his game out in Bakersfield this year. The suggestion that he would have just been that good had we handed him that spot in November is far, far, far out of left field.

 

[oobga]

I’m honestly more angry about Kesselring right now. He’s actually doing very well. Not in a lucky unsustainable way including last season.

How did we hire a $5M per season GM that couldn’t draft or evaluate his own talent worth a crap? Still remember Bobby Burgers saying “overripe” every second sentence while he was debating in the open about the GM we needed.

 

[Drivesaitl]

You're moving the goalposts.

The discussion was about the opportunity Broberg got here, and how the organization f***ed it up. My argument was that he never did enough to justify a spot in the NHL until this playoff, when it basically became too late due to contractual circumstance. Then I was told that it was nonsense, and that Desharnais should have been shipped out last year to give him a chance. That opinion is solely, 100% supported by hindsight and hindsight only.

If anything, we should have given Broberg less time in the NHL, not more. He died on the vine here with players justifiably playing ahead of him in the lineup. He probably doesn't perform well in the playoffs this year had he not gone down and actually rounded his game out in Bakersfield this year. The suggestion that he would have just been that good had we handed him that spot in November is far, far, far out of left field.

No, the discussion is on losing Broberg outright, to an offersheet, and losing a prospec of value and keeping other negligible D instead.

"Died on the vine" jebus.

Not gonna agree on this one at all.

As per the contractual circumstance the Oilers are at full fault for that as well are they not? Somebody points a gun to their head to sign other garbage contracts, deferred garbage, payouts etc.

 

[Spawn]

Contending teams don't trade off the sure thing (Kulak) who ups his game and is impactful every single playoff so they can hope and pray that a soft, oft injured, inconsistent (generously) d man can just take it from there. Especially when you have a total wild card in Nurse ahead of him. Kulak can step up into more minutes when it matters if Nurse falters (and did just that this last playoff), Broberg at that point couldn't. Broberg showed absolutely nothing at that point in his career that would have lead anyone to think that this would make sense.

Your post is loaded with hindsight. Guy plays 3 good games in the playoffs and now we're dumb that we didn't ship everyone off two years ago to accommodate him.

It’s not hindsight, plenty of people were calling to move Kulak to save cap and give Broberg that spot.

And yeah…. Contending teams definitely don’t trade away the sure thing (Ceci) so they can hope and pray (Emberson, Stecher, Dermott).

Never happens.

 

[K1984]

No, the discussion is on losing Broberg outright, to an offersheet, and losing a prospec of value and keeping other negligible D instead.

"Died on the vine" jebus.

Not gonna agree on this one at all.

No, no it isn't. Go look at the post of mine you quoted and jumped in on.

Most people would probably say that an undeveloped player that was splitting time between the press box and 10 minutes a night on his off side in the NHL is dying on the vine, but whatever. The sin was giving him no role in the NHL when he could have been developing in the A, not handing him a bigger role in the middle of last season.

I can tell you're in the mode where nothing computes, so I'll leave it there.

It’s not hindsight, plenty of people were calling to move Kulak to save cap and give Broberg that spot.

And yeah…. Contending teams definitely don’t trade away the sure thing (Ceci) so they can hope and pray (Emberson, Stecher, Dermott).

Never happens.

To save cap. Not because Broberg was better, or earned the spot. To save cap.

Lol because Ceci is a sure thing. You bet.

 

[Spawn]

No, no it isn't. Go look at the post of mine you quoted and jumped in on.

Most people would probably say that an undeveloped player that was splitting time between the press box and 10 minutes a night on his off side in the NHL is dying on the vine, but whatever.

I can tell you're in the mode where nothing computes, so I'll leave it there.



To save cap. Not because Broberg was better, or earned the spot. To save cap.

Lol because Ceci is a sure thing. You bet.

No, not because Broberg was better, but because he was easily ready to step in and play the ~14 min a night Kulak needed to play last season and because it would have saved the team $2m in space.

 

[Drivesaitl]

No, no it isn't. Go look at the post of mine you quoted and jumped in on.

Most people would probably say that an undeveloped player that was splitting time between the press box and 10 minutes a night on his off side in the NHL is dying on the vine, but whatever.

I can tell you're in the mode where nothing computes, so I'll leave it there.



To save cap. Not because Broberg was better, or earned the spot. To save cap.

Lol because Ceci is a sure thing. You bet.

This is my first reply to you:

It had zero to do with Broberg not being ready. It had everything to do with a staid org wanting to go only with vets. Look how much Woody was critiqued back in the day for not giving broberg or Holloway or other youth enough opportunity. Another guy Kesselring was great every preseason, never made the club.

Playing a dud like Desharnais over a real talent like Broberg is indictable.

That is me establishing a counter argument in first reply. I haven't moved any goal posts. My determination after 20 games of Desharnais was he was a waste of time. Its obvious Broberg was ready, he wouldn't have the excellent playoffs he did without being ready.

I had refuted your points, why on Earth would your post serve as where the goalposts are. lol

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

I remember last year (or maybe 2 years ago) I said that from talking to people in the Oil organization they were very high on Broberg, and he was often one of their best D in practice, but they thought that he lacked confidence in games. But they were very high on him.

I got a lot of posters coming after me for that pretty innocuous statement saying "well if he cant do it in games then he's useless, bustberg, etc".

My how the turntables...

meh, no different than people around here calling Broberg's play in the playoffs a "fluke" and "but his advance stats suck!"
St. Louis, a team that actually knows how to scout and develop players, identified him as an essential piece... and so far it's looking good

it's all good though, accruing cap space and watching Emberson come in and out of the line-up every other game has worked out well for the Oilers so far

 

[bucks_oil]

It was obvious Desharnais was only here due to being a Woodcrap favorite. What org plays a nothing D like that over a real talent. You and others keep saying Bro was given all the chances and yet he's a D, and young D take time to develop, and its worth the squeeze taking that time.

Desharnais his his limitations (agility) but he was literally one of the best 5v5 defensive defensemen in the league the last two years.

He was 11th !!! in the entire league for expected goals against/60 mins of EV play last year.

Over the past two years combined, he has a 55% EV goal share, that's good for 38th in the entire league

Lots of other metrics say the same... heck the eye test said the same.

It's pretty clear you could game plan around him in the playoffs, as I said, he's got limitations in transition, but he's an exceptional defensive defenseman and can be a championship level role player. You need those guys.

Having said that, Broberg needed a push... it was absolutely wild how few injuries we had on the blue line last year... knocks on wood.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Claiming that we should have dropped Desharnais in the middle of last season to give Broberg a spot is the definition of hindsight. Saying "but he was good in the playoffs!!!" is hindsight.

"We should have got rid of Desharnais instead!" appears to be your argument, which is completely hindsight based.

My last comment on Broberg is that there was clearly a problem between the Oilers and Broberg, The fact his agent went public saying the oilers gave the agent permission to look for a trade last November/December only to have the oilers say no they didn't.

I am not surprised Broberg is not an oiler I am just shocked the way it went down. The fact that oilers brain trust did not figure out just how badly he wanted off the oilers is what concerns me. According to the blues media, it was Brobergs agent who put together the contract and not the blues. For me that is concerning.

We do not have the complete story of why Broberg wanted off the oilers

 

[Drivesaitl]

Desharnais his his limitations (agility) but he was literally one of the best 5v5 defensive defensemen in the league the last two years.

He was 11th !!! in the entire league for expected goals against/60 mins of EV play last year.

Over the past two years combined, he has a 55% EV goal share, that's good for 38th in the entire league

Lots of other metrics say the same... heck the eye test said the same.

It's pretty clear you could game plan around him in the playoffs, as I said, he's got limitations in transition, but he's an exceptional defensive defenseman and can be a championship level role player. You need those guys.

Having said that, Broberg needed a push... it was absolutely wild how few injuries we had on the blue line last year... knocks on wood.

meh. A lot of the stats are who he was on ice with based are they not?

Last season was odd too as during the 16 game streak particularly I don't feel any clubs were playing us hard or particularly well.

Soon as the Oilers got to the biggest challenges of playoffs, Dallas and Florida, Desharnais needed to be replaced. Too slow, getting walked. Broberg speed helped immensely in these last two series.

I don't agree that the eyetest said Desharnais was walking on water out there.

In anycase larger story is you develop your top D prospects and not invest so heavily in the placeholders. Regardless if thats Desharnais, Kulak, whoever, Broberg needed opportunity to be in the lineup to develop and well run org gives it to him.

 

[Oilers88]

I remember last year (or maybe 2 years ago) I said that from talking to people in the Oil organization they were very high on Broberg, and he was often one of their best D in practice, but they thought that he lacked confidence in games. But they were very high on him.

I got a lot of posters coming after me for that pretty innocuous statement saying "well if he cant do it in games then he's useless, bustberg, etc".

My how the turntables...

I'm not going to pretend that I was a huge Broberg fan- I had some questions about his hockey sense all along- but the way they handled him never made any sense to me.

Specifically, in the summer of 2022, Keith retired and Kulak was a UFA. The team supposedly "didn't want to block Broberg", and thought that Broberg could be better than Chychrun by the end of the 2023 season. Based on that, they decided to sign Kulak but not pursue a top 4 left shot option. Essentially, they put Broberg in a situation where his only path to the NHL was in a top 4 role, and if he wasn't quite ready for that, the team was in big trouble. That always struck me as such a moronic and backwards way of building a team. If they really believed in him that much, then instead signing a bottom pairing defenceman and blocking the safest route for Broberg into the NHL, they should have focused on a top four defenceman, leaving the bottom pair open for Broberg. That way, if Broberg struggles, you can manage his minutes, but if he succeeds, you have really impressive depth on the left side- i.e. the foundation of a cup winning blueline.

They have been doing that kind of crap for YEARS, and I have never understood it. They earmark young players for high profile roles, with no solid plan B if they struggle. It hurts the teams success AND the players development. It's almost like they're afraid of having too many good players.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Remember when Broberg wanted a trade and supposedly we gave his agent permission to find a trade? Well apparently the returns then weren't close to what we found to be acceptable. IMO his playoffs last season is what prompted the hug offersheet. Would St. Louis have done that if he was a HS all playoffs? IMO the answer is no.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

The irony of Broberg's handling is that he showed a strong sustained NHL third pairing run with Bouchard prior to the Ekholm trade. They were a very strong young third pair playing against realistic NHL competition (what bizarrely some posters called 'butter soft' at the time while most realists understand this as smart development).

Everything changed with the Ekholm trade, positively for the team and Bouchard, but closed the NHL path at left defense and fed the fool's gold belief they could just move Broberg to his off-shooting side. More foolish was thinking they could accelerate his NHL development at 2RD playing middle pair responsibilities. Even though Broberg also showed snapshots in his rookie year of playing off-d side with a huge stretch drive game in Calgary with Barrie hurt and team chasing a wildcard spot. Broberg rolled off a 22:34 toi game with 2:43 PP and 2:09 PK and 0+/- in a 3-1 loss. Showed well his first month in North America with some big minute games when Nurse and Keith were hurt notably 23:34 toi in a hostile Vegas rink.

The Truth Speakers opinion about the player: Ekholm is getting progress reports about Broberg and is pleased with what he’s heard. “I’ve said it from Day 1 since I saw him in practice and play, I think it’s just a matter of time before he figures it out,” Ekholm said. “He’s got every attribute that a top-four — or even top-two — defenceman in this league needs.”

ROSTER REDUX: Philip Broberg | Edmonton Oilers

EdmontonOilers.com continues its 'Roster Redux' series looking at Philip Broberg's season as he looks to secure a full-time roster spot in '23-24

www.nhl.com

In the Oilers victory over the Sharks the same night as the heaps of praise from his coach and teammates, Broberg would play a season high 18:44. Between Jan. 1 to Feb. 17, Broberg recorded six assists in 18 games while posting a plus-14 rating. Unfortunately for Broberg, his growth would eventually see a setback due to the addition of a former Condor and a fellow Swede.

"He's a great defenceman, great skater, can skate his way out of problems and moves the puck well as well," Bouchard said about playing with Broberg. "He makes things easy for me, talks well. I think now we're meshing well together."

"I think we've found some chemistry on the back end," Broberg said of his partnership with Bouchard. "Both of us can break the puck out well and skate well and be an offensive threat. It's been going really good so far, and we've just got to keep it going."

Vincent Desharnais emerged as a steady contributor for the Oilers in the latter half of the season, with his poise under pressure and massive wingspan helping Edmonton ratchet up their defence heading into the postseason. Broberg's partner in Bouchard found a larger role with the Oilers after Tyson Barrie was dealt to the Nashville Predators and veteran defender Mattias Ekholm joined the fray.

From March onward, Broberg suited up for just 11 regular season games and only played more than 10 minutes in four of those contests. He notched his only goal of the season in a 6-1 victory over the Sharks in Game 79 of the Oilers season. The young defenceman saw time in 10 of the Oilers 12 postseason games, but saw his ice time range from 9:49 to as little as 3:10, with Blue & Orange typically playing seven defenders.

Ken Holland famous last words after the Ekholm trade, "What's my message [to Broberg and other young prospects]? We're trying to win. I've got to figure out exactly how we get Philip Broberg from where he's at, to being a regular. I've got to sort that out.

The Oilers kicked this issue down the road. Did nothing. Ultimately lost him for peanuts after proving points in the hardest stage of competition.

 

[K1984]

The irony of Broberg's handling is that he showed a strong sustained NHL third pairing run with Bouchard prior to the Ekholm trade. They were a very strong young third pair playing against realistic NHL competition (what bizarrely some posters called 'butter soft' at the time while most realists understand this as smart development).

Everything changed with the Ekholm trade, positively for the team and Bouchard, but closed the NHL path at left defense and fed the fool's gold belief they could just move Broberg to his off-shooting side. More foolish was thinking they could accelerate his NHL development at 2RD playing middle pair responsibilities. Even though Broberg also showed snapshots in his rookie year of playing off-d side with a huge stretch drive game in Calgary with Barrie hurt and team chasing a wildcard spot. Broberg rolled off a 22:34 toi game with 2:43 PP and 2:09 PK and 0+/- in a 3-1 loss. Showed well his first month in North America with some big minute games when Nurse and Keith were hurt notably 23:34 toi in a hostile Vegas rink.

The Truth Speakers opinion about the player: Ekholm is getting progress reports about Broberg and is pleased with what he’s heard. “I’ve said it from Day 1 since I saw him in practice and play, I think it’s just a matter of time before he figures it out,” Ekholm said. “He’s got every attribute that a top-four — or even top-two — defenceman in this league needs.”

ROSTER REDUX: Philip Broberg | Edmonton Oilers

EdmontonOilers.com continues its 'Roster Redux' series looking at Philip Broberg's season as he looks to secure a full-time roster spot in '23-24

www.nhl.com

In the Oilers victory over the Sharks the same night as the heaps of praise from his coach and teammates, Broberg would play a season high 18:44. Between Jan. 1 to Feb. 17, Broberg recorded six assists in 18 games while posting a plus-14 rating. Unfortunately for Broberg, his growth would eventually see a setback due to the addition of a former Condor and a fellow Swede.

"He's a great defenceman, great skater, can skate his way out of problems and moves the puck well as well," Bouchard said about playing with Broberg. "He makes things easy for me, talks well. I think now we're meshing well together."

"I think we've found some chemistry on the back end," Broberg said of his partnership with Bouchard. "Both of us can break the puck out well and skate well and be an offensive threat. It's been going really good so far, and we've just got to keep it going."

Vincent Desharnais emerged as a steady contributor for the Oilers in the latter half of the season, with his poise under pressure and massive wingspan helping Edmonton ratchet up their defence heading into the postseason. Broberg's partner in Bouchard found a larger role with the Oilers after Tyson Barrie was dealt to the Nashville Predators and veteran defender Mattias Ekholm joined the fray.

From March onward, Broberg suited up for just 11 regular season games and only played more than 10 minutes in four of those contests. He notched his only goal of the season in a 6-1 victory over the Sharks in Game 79 of the Oilers season. The young defenceman saw time in 10 of the Oilers 12 postseason games, but saw his ice time range from 9:49 to as little as 3:10, with Blue & Orange typically playing seven defenders.

Ken Holland famous last words after the Ekholm trade, "What's my message [to Broberg and other young prospects]? We're trying to win. I've got to figure out exactly how we get Philip Broberg from where he's at, to being a regular. I've got to sort that out.

The Oilers kicked this issue down the road. Did nothing. Ultimately lost him for peanuts after proving points in the hardest stage of competition.

Thank you for an objective, factual synopsis of his time here.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Thank you for an objective, factual synopsis of his time here.

My point is he had demonstrated a run of NHL ability with the Bouchard ten+ game run and anecdotally going back to the first month of his first pro season in North America. He owns accountability for his uneven development but took the final demotion and absolutely killed it. Then kept his head above water in Final 4 Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Oilers fiddled and diddled with an important bluechip asset for years and got badly burned when the market valued him differently. They shouldn't have been surprised. Now their post August 12 reactive contingency planning is rotating four journeymen #7-8 RD with a PK that's underwater.

 

[McShogun99]

It’s not hindsight, plenty of people were calling to move Kulak to save cap and give Broberg that spot.

And yeah…. Contending teams definitely don’t trade away the sure thing (Ceci) so they can hope and pray (Emberson, Stecher, Dermott).

Never happens.

Here's my unpopular opinion. Ceci is a better Dman then Kulak. Most of Ceci's career has been in a top 4 role where he's had good and bad moments. I posted around the offer sheet time that Ceci should stay because our RD is an area of weakness and they should trade Kulak for the extra cap and have Broberg in the 3rd pairing role. Under the current situation we could potentially not have Ekholm or Kulak on the team in 2 more seasons as well as an aging, declining Nurse with nothing in the pipeline to replace them.

 

[Oilhawks]

He did sign it. Unfortunately it was for 4.6 million....

Yup, that's the point.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Here's my unpopular opinion. Ceci is a better Dman then Kulak. Most of Ceci's career has been in a top 4 role where he's had good and bad moments. I posted around the offer sheet time that Ceci should stay because our RD is an area of weakness and they should trade Kulak for the extra cap and have Broberg in the 3rd pairing role. Under the current situation we could potentially not have Ekholm or Kulak on the team in 2 more seasons as well as an aging, declining Nurse with nothing in the pipeline to replace them.

Reading about how easily a 30 NHL game sample player on a league worst team would easily replace Ceci is one of the strangest things I've read online. Ceci's zone start deployment with the Oilers were all heavily weighted with disadvantaged defensive zone starts, 63.8, 59.7, 66.9, and 62.9. He and Nurse were fed hard goal suppression time and responsibilities over multiple coaches unfortunately too much with bled into their tendencies for inopertune breakdowns.

I like Kulak as a quality 3D but this team is weaker with him moving into PK responsibilities over Ceci's previous work. My own thought pre-August 12 was to move Kulak into 2RD and onboard Broberg into 3LD. Ceci moved out and then at trade deadline move Kulak out for a 2RD upgrade. Wishful thinking as the market set new valuation on Broberg while Oiler management passively hoped to smoke out two RFA's in a cap system with a $5 million cash infusion.

 

[North]

They still make room for their top prospects. Tampa found a way to fit in Sergachev with their stacked defence. The Oilers essentially choose a career 3rd pairing Dman over an 8th overall pick that was trending up each year. Every time Kulak stepped into a 2nd pairing role he's failed miserably. He also made a complete bonehead play on the Cup winning goal. If management looked at the bigger picture you keep Broberg over Kulak. You can get players like that every year at the deadline or UFA but good luck trying to get a potential young, top pairing D like Broberg.


Panthers players were raving about Broberg after the series, apparently JJ didn't get the memo.

We were also on-boarding Bouchard at the same time. We couldn’t afford to onboard both of them at the same time especially since Broberg struggled mightily when given opportunities.

 

[Senor Catface]

It's such dishonest dialogue when posters who called Broberg a bust last year at this same time can turn around and say "last year he was ready to play and ready for his minutes."

Always a great conversation when you can just pretend you are always in the right.