Stoneman89
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- Feb 8, 2008
- 27,169
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A rather bold statement considering their goaltending situation, don't you think?
The Loss of Broberg and Holloway Gripe Thread
- Thread starter Bryanbryoil
- Start date
Pass the Saitl Sauce
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- Apr 30, 2015
- 1,860
- 4,516
Imagine the blues and Holloway win the cup this year and then gets named to team Canada for Olympics, imagine Mcdavid would love that
I can't see Holloway being left off Team Canada if he keeps playing this way.
They were all but guaranteed the last two Cups with a better goalie.
Shanahanigans
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- Jun 16, 2011
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So Friedman said today that he can see Holloway on Team Canada next year. Big, fast, strong, can create , score , hit, and is really good defensively. 2.25 million baby. Broberg will almost certainly garner consideration for Team Sweden. Thanks JJ/Bowman.
McShogun99
Registered User
He wouldn’t be here. He should have been on the third pairing in Kulak’s spot with full on duty in the second pairing.
MessierII
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- Aug 10, 2011
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Let’s not get carried away. They are the hottest team in the league right now and are riding an easy schedule into the playoffs. 9 games in a row is impressive but that also means they were barely above .500 just 9 games ago.
That being said I could see them upsetting Winnipeg if they play them. Vegas would be tougher.
ezcreepin
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- Dec 5, 2016
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No shade to the Oilers because I genuinely do want to see McDavid and Draisaitl lift the cup sooner rather than later, but Broberg has played consistently well the entire year, before and after injury. Points wise he has only scored when actually healthy, but his ability to make a good first pass, his speed, his great skating, and willingness to jump in the play has massively enhanced the offense for us, regardless if he gets on the scoresheet. Selfishly I am happy he is on the Blues, but I also feel bad for the Oilers because I know how terrible it can feel to lose a young player to another team for reasons that could've been prevented. Looking outside of my fandom for the Blues, it is awful for the Oilers because it means they are a weaker team (assuming he broke out), which means it's that much harder for McDavid and Draisaitl to win a cup. If you guys had a competent and consistent goalie I think this might all be moot, but yea.
I would take a look back after the 4 Nations faceoff. Blues finally had a chance to have some practices with Monty and subsequently went on a 6-2-2 ten game stretch and hammered out a 9-game winning streak after that. Since 4 Nations, we are 15-2-2. Since January, Blues are 22-11-3, a 0.611 W/L % or 0.653 pts%. They are and have been playing well for a pretty long stretch.
bucks_oil
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- Aug 25, 2005
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That's exactly part of my point. @McFlash97 was advocating for keeping only Holloway after the Offer Sheet.
If we did that we'd have been using up LTIR (therefore not accruing) and ultimately would not have been able to upgrade our D from what we started the season with. We likely still would have made a $1.7M offer on Klingberg, since that was a "good bet for the money" on a recently top-pairing capable D.
Obviously he's not up to game speed and so that would have been it... no more money for Walman, no more money for Frederic.
Our team would have been:
Nuge McD Hyman
Holloway Draisaitl Arvidson
Janmark Henrique Brown
Skinner Kapanen Perry
(Kane)
Ekholm Bouchard
Nurse Klingberg
Kulak Emberson
(Stecher)
That's just not good enough. What we have is much better, especially once Frederic and Kane are back:
Nuge McD Hyman
Skinner Draisaitl Arvidsson
Podkolzin Frederic Perry
Janmark Henrique Brown
(Kane, Kapanen)
Ekholm Bouchard
Nurse Walman
Kulak Emberson
(Klingberg, Stecher)
bucks_oil
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- Aug 25, 2005
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I think that's exactly why they let him go at $4.6 and why they were trying to keep him at $1.8... we just can't afford a $4.6M 3rd pairing guy if we are elevating Kulak into a role that's a bit above his head.
If Oilers mgmt were SURE that he'd be 2nd pairing this year (they couldn't have been) then we'd have kept him. If we could have traded Kane (we couldn't) we'd have kept him.
It was NOT an option to keep him, and risk being over the cap when the most untrade-able asset (Kane) in the league comes back and makes us non-compliant. Then we literally would have had to trade either Nuge or Hyman, or two of Skinner, Arvidsson, Henrique (who all have NTC) or Kulak.
Ask yourself if that would look like a good management decision?
It was Broberg risk (both his risk and Kane's return risk) vs optionality (which became Klingberg, Walman, Frederic)... I think they chose the only thing they could, and IMO a better roster ultimately.
The errors happened earlier in the summer (Arvidsson, Skinner, not prioritizing RFA)... they didn't make an error in not-matching.
Behind Enemy Lines
Registered User
Florida tilted the ice against everyone last year. They were #1 in NHL edge regular season and their zone splits had little difference in the playoffs. Looking at Broberg's playoff history, in 2022-23, he was heavily protected with EV o-zone starts of 68% and d-zone 32%, and +3. Last season in deep playoff competition against elite opposition his EV zone starts were 46.6 o-zone and 53.4% d-zone. Add that 15.4 minutes of his total 157.9 toi were short-handed, this player was trusted in defending situations.
This year, in stretch drive play without his elite team #1 partner, his ice-time in March is 21:19, up 1:10 toi from the month previous. He's +20, 27 point, on a CF 47% with EV zone starts of 47.6% o-zone and 52.4% d-zone. His all situational zone starts are 44.2% o-zone and 55.8 d-zone weighing in his big time on ice as a core penalty killer.
Broberg is a big, fast two-way defenseman with great gap control and strong rush defending abilities. The offensive production is solid, but in this early, emerging prime years role he is a trusted defending situational d-man who can pitch in some EV situational scoring.
The Blues, whose drafting and development I think is clearly better than the Oilers, bet on their better player evaluations of Broberg and Holloway, to snake two top of roster pre-prime year players for pennies on the dollar.
The Oilers sat on these two homegrown talents coming off a deep playoff run for over a month and got caught with their pants down when the market reset their value. Oil overspending and not prioritizing their young players is a historic precedent blunder.
WhiskeyEE
Registered User
- Mar 20, 2025
- 33
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Kind of sucks that Holland's contract expired right after the cup run since I don't think he would've made the same decisions as Jackson. It was kind of a perfect storm. Although it was his fault for not signing them to contracts earlier.
McDNicks17
Moderator
It would have been so much worse with Holland.
The best way to describe his tenure with the Oilers is make a mistake and make a much bigger mistake trying to fix that mistake.
If Holland contract expired a year early, Broberg and Holloway would still be Oilers
Behind Enemy Lines
Registered User
Even so Jackson was with the organization for a full season in succession planning. And he quickly inserted himself into personnel decision making that would be under Holland's domain replacing Wright as head of amateur scouting and then installing his choice for new head coach. As a super agent he would know the risk of damaged player relationships, ramifications of trade requests, and had worked with the aggressive agent Ferris.
There is shared accountability with Holland in not dealing with the Broberg situation in a pro-active manner essentially from trade deadline to June 30 end of team control and then choosing to prioritize overspending on all other personnel over two homegrown players who just contributed to a Cup run. Letting the Broberg situation sit in limbo opened the door to a double jeopardy offer sheet scenario. Failing to negotiate left them double exposed.
McShogun99
Registered User
I think JJ was running the show the last year and Holland wasn’t in the decision making process anymore. GM’s love their own draft picks so I doubt Broberg and Holloway wouldn’t have went anywhere even if it meant Holland had to match the offer sheets.
Jackson didn't come in until mid season right around Knob hire. If Holland contract expired in the summer after we lost to Vegas, he wouldn't have mishandled Broberg to the point he requested for a trade.
But don’t forget is Holloway on Knob’s team. He probably gets scratched for half the games here because he gets 9 mins of ice time
No. According to Stauffer- Holland was told to sign them both midway through last season- and for whatever reason- he decided not to
