Edmonton’s Cap Planning Could Be Hindered By An Offer Sheet

While offer sheets are few and far between in the NHL, all it takes is one team that decides to try to disrupt things and sign a player on a cap-strapped team to an offer sheet to change things.  Looking at who is left, Edmonton is a team that would find themselves in a tough spot if one of their restricted free agents, defenseman Philip Broberg and forward Dylan Holloway, were to eventually sign an offer sheet with another team.

Even after moving out Ryan McLeod to Buffalo earlier this summer, the Oilers currently find themselves projected over the salary cap by $354K, per PuckPedia, and that’s with a 21-player roster.  While there has been plenty of speculation that winger Evander Kane could be on LTIR to start the season, that’s only a short-term solution as they’d have to get back into cap compliance to activate him later on.  The fact they went and moved McLeod out suggests that they don’t expect Kane to miss the entire year so they’ll have to drop below the $88MM Upper Limit at some point.

To that end, it stands to reason that Edmonton will be pushing for bridge deals with both Broberg and Holloway, perhaps as short as a one-year agreement to keep the cap charge as low as possible.  It’s a route they took with Evan Bouchard last summer and did so in the past with McLeod and Kailer Yamamoto coming off their entry-level contracts.  All things considered, they’ve been pretty consistent with that practice and understandably so.

But what if one or both of those players want the security of a longer-term agreement?  At this point, it looks like the only way they’d be able to get one is by signing an offer sheet.

Granted, neither player has done enough at the NHL level to command the type of offer from another team that pushes the compensation threshold to the level of a first-round pick.  But it doesn’t have to get that high to put Edmonton in a bind, assuming the players are willing to sign an offer sheet elsewhere.

Broberg only played 12 regular season games for the Oilers last season but the 2019 eighth-overall pick was quite productive with AHL Bakersfield.  The 23-year-old then got into ten playoff games and played well enough that there will be teams that should be willing to take a multi-year flyer on Broberg at a salary that likely surpasses what GM Stan Bowman has in mind.

Holloway is in a similar situation.  He also wound up spending time with the Condors and produced 16 points in 18 games there.  But the 2020 14th…