ST. LOUIS — Doug Armstrong knew what he wanted to accomplish and he didn’t care who it might offend — as long as it improved the St. Louis Blues.
The veteran general manager concocted a plan to tender offer sheets to the Edmonton Oilers’ Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway simultaneously. He took the idea to Darren Ferris, Broberg’s agent, to see if it would be possible. He knew the move would handcuff Oilers GM Stan Bowman, and that a few other managers around the league might view it as taboo.
Again, Armstrong didn’t care.
“If there is a GM code not to do offer sheets, no one emailed it to me,” he said.
It worked.
After the Blues announced the contract offers last Tuesday, Edmonton had a week to match them, and Bowman confirmed on Tuesday that the Oilers would not.
So Broberg, a 23-year-old defenseman, and Holloway, a 22-year-old forward, will be coming to St. Louis for training camp in September. As compensation, a second-round pick will be going to Edmonton for Broberg, and a third-rounder for Holloway. The teams also consummated a side trade, in which the Oilers received defensive prospect Paul Fischer and a third-round pick in 2028.
The Blues’ social media account that made the announcement official on Tuesday read: “Got ’em both.”
Got ’em both. #stlblues
DETAILS ➡️ https://t.co/jaoO4IW7I2
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) August 20, 2024
It wouldn’t have been possible without some strong-arming by Armstrong, but also without a lot of other developments that happened behind the scenes the past two months.
In addition to news conferences with Armstrong, Bowman, Broberg and Holloway, The Athletic spoke with Ferris and Blake Robson, Holloway’s agent, to fill in the blanks as to how it all came to fruition.
The Blues were keeping an eye on Edmonton this offseason, and Armstrong thought that Oilers CEO of hockey operations Jeff Jackson, who was handling the GM duties on an interim basis until Bowman was hired in late July, did a “great job” improving the roster with the free-agent signings of forwards Viktor Arvidsson (two years, $8 million) and Jeff Skinner (one year, $3 million).
“But it put them in a situation where they had used a lot of their cap equity,” Armstrong said.
The Blues had been familiar with Broberg and Holloway. They scouted the two during their draft years and watched their development in the American Hockey League.
“We saw really good growth from them in the American League and what they did last year in the (NHL) playoffs,” Armstrong said.
It was an opportunity, with Broberg and Holloway both being restricted free agents this summer, for the Blues to potentially add a couple of players in the age bracket they’re targeting. But the club would have to utilize a mechanism in the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement that’s seldom seen: the offer sheet.
Armstrong had an idea.
The Oilers might match an offer sheet for Broberg, or one for Holloway. But what if both players received one from the Blues?
“You’re looking at how you can acquire the players, and what circumstances set up best?” Armstrong said. “We felt if we could pinpoint those two players, make them offers that might be difficult for Edmonton to match, we would go that direction. It’s obviously harder to match two than one, so we went that direction.”
The work began well before the offer sheets landed on Bowman’s desk last Tuesday.
For months, Ferris was hoping to find a contract for Broberg in Edmonton, but the two sides never got close on a contract.
“The offer they provided was not sufficient, and I elected to move forward with the offer sheet,” he said Tuesday.
There were three teams, including the Blues, that Ferris deemed serious in their interest. The contract offers were likely going to be the same — $4.58 million, the maximum salary that requires a second-round pick as compensation — so it came down to which team had the fewest obstacles to make the offer sheet happen.
“The other two (clubs) were saying, ‘We’d like to do it, but there are some moves we have to make…’” Ferris recalled.
The Blues had just one obstacle: they needed to re-acquire the 2025 second-round pick that they attached with Kevin Hayes in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins in late June. The CBA stipulates that the teams must possess the proper draft compensation when issuing an offer sheet, which for Broberg was next summer’s second-rounder.
“We had to have our own pick, and we went to work on that,” Armstrong said.
The Blues eventually talked Pittsburgh into making a deal. The Penguins returned the 2025 second-rounder for the Blues’ 2026 second-rounder and a 2025 third-rounder.
But that wasn’t as easy as it sounds, and as a result, the idea of the offer sheet for Broberg was briefly believed to be dead.
“‘Doug was saying, ‘Hey, you might as well move forward with one of the other teams,’” Ferris said. “But as I was just about to do that, Doug said, ‘Hold off.’ He thought he was going to get his pick, and that’s what happened.”
In the meantime, Armstrong and Ferris had been working together to rope in Holloway.
“Correct,” Ferris said. “Doug came up with the idea of having both players offer-sheeted.”
Robson, who has just two NHL clients including Holloway, had previously reached out to Ferris through a mutual friend to inquire about contract negotiations with Edmonton.
“He wanted some counsel for his client,” Ferris said. “As the conversations with Armstrong evolved, I said, ‘Coincidentally I’m helping (Robson) with his deal.’ So then I presented (Robson) with the idea of these offer sheets. It was a unique opportunity to have both guys. It was getting their cap number in a position where it would be difficult to match. If you did one of them, there’s a likelihood that they would match, but if you did two, it would be difficult because the number is a lot greater and there would be more maneuvering they’d have to do.”
Initially, Holloway struggled with the idea of an offer sheet, but eventually, Robson and he got on board.
“Both of our clients were in the same situation with the Oilers, being up and down and tossed around a bit,” Robson said. “I reached out to (Ferris) to see where he was at with the whole situation and get some feedback on what they were thinking. That was the early steps, and then I heard from St. Louis and it snowballed from there.”
On Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. Mountain time, Bowman received the two offer sheets.
Ferris said the Oilers GM called him and it was an “uncomfortable” conversation.
“It’s not a great one when you’re losing a player of Philip’s ilk,” Ferris said. “I just explained, ‘Hey, we had to do this, it’s the business of hockey.’ He didn’t give me any indication at that time whether he was matching or not.”
Was Bowman aware that Ferris was advising Robson, and they were working in concert?
“No, he had no idea,” Ferris said.
News of the dual offer sheets hit the internet, and the reaction to the headline was NHL-wide.
“I did see the reaction,” said Holloway, who was home in Bragg Creek, Alberta. “I knew it was coming out at 7:30 in the morning. I always work out in the morning, so I was at the gym with a few of the guys. I gave them a heads-up that this is going to happen, but a few of them didn’t really understand. Then it kind of blew up a bit and was the center of attention up here. It is what it is — Edmonton has passionate fans — but it was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”
Bowman acknowledged Tuesday that it was a challenging situation.
“Offer sheets, in general, aren’t common, and then having two of them hit at the same time certainly isn’t common,” he said. “As far as my reaction, I just really rolled my sleeves up and got to work.”
The Oilers evaluated their four options: match both, match Broberg, match Holloway or match neither.
“We didn’t rule out anything right away,” Bowman said.
They did short-term and long-term projections with the roster and salary cap and came to the conclusion that they’d match neither.
“It’s not reflective of the players (Broberg and Holloway) at all,” Bowman said. “This came down to a business decision. I think when you look at it in the totality of it, we were faced with a challenging situation, but we moved forward with the best series of actions to put us in a good spot.”
The Oilers made two trades last week — dealing defenseman Cody Ceci to the San Jose Sharks for defensman and Ty Emberson, and acquiring Vancouver Canucks forward Vasily Podkolzin — that made it look like they were clearing salary-cap space to match the offers. But Bowman said a decision not to match had already been made at that point, and he was bringing in cheaper replacements.
Ferris said Broberg didn’t know what to think about the reports and rumors.
“Any time there was something on social media, I’d say, ‘Look, don’t believe it! It’s 99 percent lies!’” Ferris said.
Broberg wanted to be in St. Louis, mainly because of the new opportunity he’ll have, but also because he’s Swedish and the Blues have Swedish GM-in-waiting in Alexander Steen.
“Everything I’ve heard about them is very good and positive,” Broberg said. “At the end of the day, it’s business. I’m very thankful for the years in Edmonton and for the teammates and coaches I had there. But I’m looking forward for a new chapter in St. Louis now. I think this team has some very good young guys, and I would like to help the team anyway I can, and I’m looking forward to see what we can do next year.”
Holloway, whose two-year contract has a $2.2 million AAV, echoed the same sentiment.
“There’s so much more that goes into it than people think,” he said. “People think you just look at the numbers and say, ‘Oh, I’m going to take the better number.’ But for myself, we were trying to get a number with Edmonton and we were just pretty far off in our negotiations, I’d say. With St. Louis, I was able to talk with Doug Armstrong before I signed (the offer sheet), and he gave me the vision of where St. Louis is going as a team, how they have such a young core group, and their goals for the next couple of years. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with the offer sheet because when you sign it, it could get matched or not. But I figured either way, it would’ve been a good option for me, and I’m excited that I have an opportunity to play for the Blues now.”
“I’m really excited to join the Blues — excited about this opportunity for sure.”
Hear Dylan Holloway’s first thoughts on joining the Blues. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/Ov9WKgWDrR
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) August 20, 2024
Armstrong saw opportunity, too, and seized it.
In fact, when Bowman said he wouldn’t match the offer sheets if the Blues traded the Oilers a package that included defensive prospect Paul Fischer (fifth round, 2023) and a third-round pick in 2028, Armstrong accommodated him.
“This is a tool everyone uses and should use,” Armstrong said. “I think it was reported that I wouldn’t have done this to (former Edmonton GM) Ken Holland. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. Quite honestly, I’d do it to my mother if she was managing the Oilers. My job is to take care of the St. Louis Blues fans and St. Louis Blues organization, and we saw an opportunity to do that.
“So, there’s no code. Offer sheets are there if you think you’re going to get the player. I don’t believe in offers sheets to harm an organization, meaning ‘put an offer sheet on them because you know they’re going to match but it puts them in a bad spot.’ I don’t see the purpose in that. I think the purpose of an offer sheet is, if you look at a franchise and you think you have opportunity to get a player, you do it. That’s the way we looked at this one.
“I want to reiterate that this wasn’t anything against an organization. This was an attempt for us to get better, and that’s the only reason we did it. It was successful, and we’d do it again if we thought it’d be successful. Again, that code that I’ve been hearing about, it’s not true. Managers do what they have to do for their franchises, and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be doing their job. That’s how we got to this point — I had to do my job.”
(Photo of Dylan Holloway: Leila Devlin / Getty Images)
