Oilers GM caught in a lie on decision not to match offer sheets to Broberg and Holloway
Photo credit: Edmonton Oilers Raw
The Oilers inability to lock up young players Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg has looked tough this season as they excel with the St. Louis Blues, but Stan Bowman was recently caught in a full on lie about losing them.
Both Holloway and Broberg have both said they signed the offer sheets to leave Edmonton in pursuit of more ice time, but it also clearly had to do with higher salaries than were being offered by the Oilers.
GM Stan Bowman caught in a lie about losing Holloway to offer sheets
Revisiting Bowman's After Hours interview earlier this week, the Oilers GM claimed that matching even one of the offer sheets would've made them unable to field a cap-compliant team, which simply isn't true.
We wouldn't have the team we have now if we would've matched either one of those offers. We would've had to have gotten rid of a pretty core player. Simply, the math didn't work.
And as I recounted back at the time when we decided not to, we wouldn't have been able to field a team if we matched either of those offer sheets. We would've had to move out a very important player on our team. We didn't have the flexibility.
- Stan Bowman
And as I recounted back at the time when we decided not to, we wouldn't have been able to field a team if we matched either of those offer sheets. We would've had to move out a very important player on our team. We didn't have the flexibility.
- Stan Bowman
Matching either of the offer sheets would've put the Oilers closer to the salary cap for sure, but in the offseason there was plenty of ways to offload money if needed. The Oilers quickly pivoted to add Podkolzin and Emberson, both on contracts under $1M.
Oilers analyst Bruce Curlock has called Bowman's comments full-on nonsense.
Not only that, but the Oilers ended up entering this season under the salary cap with a goal to accrue cap space through the year.
They didn't stick to the strategy long, as they claimed Kapanen on waivers at $1M and signed Klingberg at $1.7M. Had the Oilers made any slightly different decisions, matching one offer sheet was entirely possible.
Philip Broberg's had a breakout season but may still be too rich for the Oilers at his current salary of $4.58M. Dylan Holloway is the player the Oilers may regret not matching at just $2.29M, seeing the Alberta native now score 58 points in 72 games.
In Bowman's defence, he was hardly to blame for the non-signing of Holloway and Broberg and losing them to offer sheets while just being hired by the team.
This failure is on the Oilers organization, but they can still move forward, and still win the Stanley Cup without Holloway and Broberg.
| POLL | ||
MARS 25 | 389 ANSWERS Oilers GM caught in a lie on decision not to match offer sheets to Broberg and Holloway Do you think the Oilers should've matched Dylan Holloway's contract? | ||
| Should've Matched Holloway | 299 | 76.9 % |
| Letting him go was right | 90 | 23.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
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