Oilers top prospect out long term with injury, potentially affecting trade deadline plans

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Liam McCormick
February 20, 2024 (3:38 PM)

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As the Oilers AHL team Bakersfield took warmups today, to defensive prospect Philip Broberg was notably absent. According to Condors report Ryan Holt, Broberg has recently sustained an injury which is now worse than initially believed, and he's been moved to week-to-week evaluation status.

It's a significant blow to both Broberg and the Oilers. After requesting a trade earlier this season and clearly having the relationship break down with the team, Broberg returned to the AHL to get consistent playing time where he's proved himself to be worthy of an NHL roster spot. In 29 games with the Condors this year, Broberg has an impressive 19 points.

With Broberg having great success in the AHL, the Oilers were believed to be comfortable moving on from one of their existing defenceman like Brett Kulak or Cody Ceci to clear cap space for trades and calling up Broberg as the replacement. Now that he's injured long term with no set timeline for recovery, the Oilers may have to find another way to clear salary in a trade.

The Oilers have a number of other veteran defenceman in the AHL system, but none others that could be trusted in important games. Perhaps now the Oilers will look to move a forward like Warren Foegele instead to clear cap space for an incoming upgrade, like Jake Guentzel or Jordan Eberle.