The Edmonton Oilers chose not to match the offer sheets for Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway from the St. Louis Blues.
This means Broberg and Holloway are now officially with the Blues, while the Oilers get a 2025 second-round pick for Broberg and a 2025 third-round pick for Holloway.
It’s unusual for players to sign offer sheets in today’s NHL, and even more uncommon for those offers not to be matched by their original teams.
Rare Moves in Modern NHL:
Since the salary cap was introduced in 2005-06, only 12 offer sheets have been signed. Before this week, just two were successful: Dustin Penner’s move to Edmonton in 2007 and Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s switch to Carolina in 2021. Now, Broberg and Holloway join this rare group.
Why don’t teams use this strategy more often? One reason is that general managers fear retaliation. For example, Montreal tried to sign Carolina’s Sebastian Aho, so Carolina later targeted Kotkaniemi from Montreal as payback .
Another theory is about money. Offer sheets can drive up salaries of restricted free agents (RFAs), which teams want to avoid due to salary cap constraints. Broberg and Holloway got bigger deals with St. Louis than they likely would have if they had stayed with Edmonton—$9.16 million over two years for Broberg and $4.58 million over two years for Holloway.
Fans might think it’s about time teams start using RFAs more strategically.
Given how hard it is to find good players on the open market or through trades, maybe we’ll see more of these moves out of necessity soon.
What do you think? Should more teams take advantage of restricted free agency?
