'They probably should have been signed': Have Oilers recovered from August '24 disaster?

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This in from former NHL GM and player agent Brian Lawton, his assessment of the August 2024 that saw the Edmonton Oilers lose Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway to the St. Louis Blues for pennies on the dollar, a transaction that may well have cost the Oilers the Stanley Cup this season.

“There’s no doubt he welcomed the offer sheet,” said Lawton in regards to Broberg, speakng with John Shannon and Darren Millard on the 100% Hockey podcast. “It wasn’t working out. That was a very tough, difficult situation for everyone involved. Ultimately, I would say that both those players, they probably should have been signed… You give them a little more and you lock them up. That didn’t happen. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say why.”

Lawton said he was impressed with Broberg in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final. “There was a lot of controversy. I watched every game of that Finals. He played very well, but his analytics weren’t great in some areas. So people kept saying it was like he was lucky. And if you really watched that series, you wouldn’t conclude he was lucky. He’s a big kid that can skate… And that’s what he really proved in St. Louis. And that’s why that’s worked out so well for St. Louis. Tough to find Top 4 D in the NHL. Really tough.”

My take

1. Most Oilers fans will agree that Edmonton suffered a massive blow in losing Broberg and Holloway to the Blues and getting just a second round and a third round pick respectively in compensation. They also got an additional third round pick and mid-level prospect Paul Fischer for future considerations (essentially for agreeing not to match on Holloway and Broberg). That is way less than those two players were worth in trade, even last summer when they were less proven.

Broberg played his way this year into the Top 4 on the Blues defence, while Holloway became one of the NHL’s premier power forwards. Holloway attacked with speed, hit with ferocity and scored 63 points for the Blues, before missing the playoffs due to injury.

2. Who is to blame for the fiasco? Oilers fans will also generally agree that former GM Ken Holland failed to ink Broberg and Holloway during the 2023-24 season and that interim GM Jeff Jackson got the Oilers into a dangerous salary cap situation last July when he signed a number of expensive veterans such as Jeff Skinner, Viktor Arvidsson and Adam Henrique.

If Jackson had held off on just one of those signings, the Oilers might have avoided the two offer sheets, or at least of had ample room to match on Holloway. But not to be.

3. So how have the Oilers recovered from disaster of August ’24?

Vasily Podkolzin was brought in on a trade and provided great physical play but not the scoring Holloway brought to St. Lou. Edmonton also traded a first round pick to bring in d-man Jake Walman, who played as well, if not better, than Broberg would have for the Oilers in the 2025 playoffs. In this way, new GM Stan Bowman minimized the damage done by the loss of Holloway and Broberg. But it cost the Oilers a first rond pick to get Walman.

It’s hard to shake the feeling that if Edmonton had found a way to match on at least Holloway, and if Holloway had been in Edmonton’s line-up against Florida this past June that Edmonton would have had a much better chance of beating Florida.

As for Broberg, it’s worth noting that Darnell Nurse only found his game in the 2024 playoffs after he was paired up with Broberg.

Nurse struggled throughout the 2025 playoffs, never really find a strong match for a partner, save for Troy Stecher for a handful of games against Vegas and Dallas.

If Broberg had been around this year would Nurse have played closer to his “A” game in the playoffs, as opposed to his “D” game? I suspect so.

4. Of course one knock on Holloway was that he keeps getting injured. He did indeed miss the 2025 playoffs for the Blues due to injury, this time an unspecified lower body injury that required surgery.

5. Bottom lines? The loss was a devastating blow to the Oilers, but Bowman scrambled and, in the end, found a way to bring in useful replacement players in Podkolzin and Walman. But the pay-off from the money spent on older free agents Skinner and Arvidsson wasn’t great, and the cost for Walman was significant, thus compounding the colossal mistake Jackson made in getting the Oilers into a brutally tight cap situation last July.

* Sigh *

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