A week ago, the St. Louis Blues sent an offer sheet to two Edmonton Oilers players. Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway signed them and the Oil had a week to respond.
Both teams made moves as a result of this pick. The Blues had to re-acquire a pick to have the proper compensation to get the deal done. Over the week, the Oilers also made a couple of trades that figured to be in response to this.
On Tuesday, we learned that the Blues successfully poached these two players. They will be St. Louis Blues players beginning in 2024-25. They are handing over a second and third-round pick as a result of this move.
In a separate transaction, the Blues traded future considerations to the Oilers in exchange for a 2028 third-round pick and Paul Fischer. Only time will tell what the purpose of this deal was for either team.
The St. Louis Blues successfully poached two players from the Edmonton Oilers
We don’t see offer sheet success stories very much throughout NHL history. This one for St. Louis landed them two players who will help them be a much better team.
Broberg will join their blue line and Holloway will get way more ice time than he would have had in Edmonton. These two former first-round picks have a lot to offer and the Blues will enjoy having them.
With that said, St. Louis is in a strange spot and the decision to go about this was interesting. They are far from being the elite team that they were in 2019 when they won the Stanley Cup.
Adding depth like this instead of going for the rebuild isn’t the way that people expected them to go but here we are.
As for the Oilers, this doesn’t take away from their Stanley Cup contention status. After being defeated in game seven of the 2024 Final, they are hungry to have another chance next spring. They could use another defenseman now with Broberg gone but that can be addressed at a later date.
They’ve already added forwards like Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson. Now, they will replace Holloway with a guy like Vasily Podkolzin who they traded for over the weekend.
This move caused some drama but is it going to change all that much? We’ll see.