Philip Broberg
After having an up-and-down career with the Edmonton Oilers, the 8th overall pick in the 2019 NHL entry draft, Philp Broberg looks to have finally landed a full-time spot on the NHL club following last season's playoff run. After playing only 12 NHL games last season Broberg took over Vincent Desharnais' spot in the lineup at the end of the Dallas Stars series and played in every game after that including all seven games in the Stanley Cup Finals.
In those playoff games, Broberg did not look out of place at all. He looked confident in his plays and fit right in on the blue line. Broberg's speed and puck-handling ability were the main reason that he took over for Desharnais in the playoffs, While Desharnais is a bigger tougher player his skill with the puck is not as good as Broberg's and that deep in the playoffs you want someone who can handle the puck better.
Looking forward to this coming season I would expect all the pairings to be the same as they were in game 7 of the cup final. That would put Broberg on the second pair with Darnell Nurse. This means that Broberg will be getting a whole 82 games playing against high-level competition. While the Ekholm/Bouchard pairing will be paired with the McDavid line most of the time that means the Broberg pairing will likely be tasked with shutting down the other team's top players when the opposition doesn't want to go skill versus skill.
This will be a good litmus test season for Broberg. While he played a good 10 games in the playoffs last season, the long drawn-out 82-game season is a completely different story. Not to mention that when you play more games the opposition starts to learn your tendencies, which means if a weakness is found in Broberg's game he will need to find a way to fix it mid-season. Not an easy task, but something that the one-time 8th overall pick should be able to do.
I look forward to seeing a full season of Broberg, watching him in the playoffs sparked my interest in seeing what he can do to help this Oilers team moving forward.