August 20, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

Edmonton Oilers general manager Stan Bowman spoke to the media on Tuesday after he made the decision to not match the offer sheets signed by Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg.

Bowman began by speaking about the process that he and his management team went through while making the decision to let both players walk. He basically explained that he set out to evaluate how his team would look both in the short term and the long term in any of the four possible scenarios that existed (keeping both players, keeping one player or the other, and letting both players leave).

He also said that he spoke with every team in the league to get a sense of what they were trying to do with their players at this time. Bowman said that they “…exhausted all opportunities, and at the end of the day, we ended up where we are today.”

Related: Oilers decline to match offer sheets for Holloway and Broberg

Bowman also made a point of saying that the decision wasn’t based on any concerns about either player. He said that “this came down to a business decision…”.

That’s really what it boils down to for Bowman and the Oilers. It was a salary cap related decision. Bowman specifically said “…this situation gives us more opportunity to hopefully be able to accrue some cap space…”, which would allow the Oilers to add players at the trade deadline.

That specific language was very important. Teams that operate in LTIR cannot accrue cap space. That leads us into the Evander Kane situation. Later in the media availability, Bob Stauffer asked Bowman for any clarification on Kane’s situation.

Bowman said that he is not involved in the decision making process regarding Kane’s treatment and recovery, and he said that he should not be involved in those discussions. The game plan is entirely up to Kane and his doctors. Bowman added that he will be supportive of whatever decision Kane makes.

Bowman actually went into a bit of detail about how the LTIR system works and explained that a team needs to be able to get back under the salary cap in order to activate an injured player that was on LTIR. He said that was going to be a challenge if they kept one or both of Holloway and Broberg, but they are now in a situation where they would be able to activate Kane once he’s healthy.

Bowman also went on to explain that teams do not accrue cap space while they use LTIR, and that the team starts from $0 of accrued cap space once a player is activated. Hypothetically, if a team’s spending would add up to $87 million with the cap hits of the players on the opening night roster and no roster movies were made during the season, that team would accrue $500,000 in cap space at the halfway point of the season. If a player was to be placed on LTIR and reactivated at the halfway point of the season leaving them with that same roster, then the team starts at $0 of accrued cap space on that day. Bowman said that “…you’re not going to be able to build up a lot in just a month or so…”. 

This was basically the thought process that I went through when evaluating my own choice in the matter. I wrote a piece about the cap implications of the offer sheets last week, but I actually made an error in that piece. I wrote that the Oilers’ new upper limit after placing Kane on LTIR would be $88 million plus his cap hit since the Oilers were over the cap at that time. 

I neglected to include the fact that the team’s new upper limit would be whatever their cap hit would add up to at the time Kane would be placed on LTIR. That would only have mattered if the Oilers had kept Holloway or Broberg. Keeping just one of the players would have made the team’s cap spending somewhere between $88 million and $93,125,000. I operated under the assumption that they would be under the upper limit if they were to keep one player, but that was wrong. The new upper limit would have been whatever the team’s total cap hit was when Kane would have been placed on LTIR.

I rectified the mistake in a piece last night that included the numbers after Sunday’s trades. They could have kept Holloway and been able to activate Kane without trading a player away. They could have kept Broberg and activated Kane, but they would have had to have played shorthanded for a game and then used an emergency recall to do it. They could not have kept both players and been able to activate Kane without making a trade to move money out.

Related: Oilers cap recap after Sunday’s trades

Anyway, the salary cap was ultimately the deciding factor for Bowman. They wanted to give themselves the most salary cap flexibility for this season and going forward, and walking away from both players accomplished that. They also wanted to put themselves in a position to be able to add players at the deadline. They have put themselves in a position where they don’t have to place Kane on LTIR at all if they don’t want to risk not being able to accrue cap space.

Bowman said that once they decided not to match the offer sheets and they knew that they had other assets coming, they were able to have other conversations about other transactions. Reading between the lines, that means that the decision to not match the offer sheets was made prior to Sunday evening’s trades that saw them acquire Vasily Podkolzin from the Vancouver Canucks for a 2025 fourth round draft pick, and Ty Emberson for Cody Ceci and a 2025 third round pick.

Related: Oilers trade Ceci to the Sharks

Bowman gave a little bit of insight into Podkolzin, Emberson, and the prospect that was acquired from the Blues on Tuesday morning (Paul Fischer). 

Bowman likes the skill set that Podkolzin brings, citing his goal scoring ability, his power, and the way he plays the game in straight lines. He also likes Podkolizin’s physicality. Bowman also noted Podkolzin’s high draft pedigree and the fact that the Canucks had a different management regime come in after Podkolzin was drafted. “Certainly, there’s a bet that we can get him back on track from where he was at one point, not only his draft year but his first year pro…”.

Related: Oilers acquire Podkolzin

He talked about having talked to Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch about Emberson because Knoblauch coached Emberson with the Hartford Wolfpack in 2022-23. “[Knoblauch] was very complimentary of his game, you know he loved having him on his team in Hartford. He was a very effective player for him.”

Bowman also addressed Fischer. Fischer is a left-handed defenceman from Chicago, where Bowman has spent many years. Bowman said that he has watched a lot of Fischer’s games. He spoke highly of Fischer’s character, which is a positive sign. Bowman also mentioned that he fell to the fifth round of the 2023 NHL draft because of injuries in his draft year and that his actual level of talent would have justified his going higher in that draft if he was healthy. He also said that Fischer is in the mix to make the World Junior team for the United States this season.

Ryan Rishaug asked Bowman what he thinks of his new defence group after losing Broberg and Ceci:

“We have players that we’re optimistic that they’re going to be able to come in and fill a role for us…one of the things we want to do is give them a chance to show us… there’s three new players there (Troy Stecher, Josh Brown, and Emberson) that we have to give an opportunity to show us that they can be valuable…”.

Bowman also said that he wouldn’t close the door on adding a free agent before the season starts, but his comments suggest that the current players are going to get the chance to show what they can do to start the season. It seems like they want to be in a position to add at the trade deadline, so the current group will have to get the team that far at least.

This was Bowman’s first real test as GM of the Oilers, and it was his first real interview about a decision of his. Time will tell if he made the right decision by letting Holloway and Broberg leave, but I felt that Bowman was refreshingly transparent during his interview. He commended his staff for the work they did over the past week, and he talked about having consulted with Knoblauch about Emberson, which are both great signs in my opinion.