When the St. Louis Blues originally tendered their double offer sheet for Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, there was quite a lot of shock around the NHL. This was based on the reality that offer sheets are a rarity, with reference to an unwritten rule among general managers not to go down this road.
Blue general manager Doug Armstrong did subsequently come out and say there was no such code, but it didn't change the feeling among fans of being blindsided. However, this feeling of being blindsided didn't extend to the Edmonton Oilers organisation itself, at least according to Holloway.
Giving all due credit to David Staples of the Edmonton Journal, Holloway made an appearance on the Hockey Sense podcast hosted by Blues' reporter Andy Strickland. And it apparently turns out that the Oilers were well aware ahead of time, that Armstrong and the Blues were going to tender offer sheets for Holloway and Broberg.
Holloway believes he had no other choice
With the context of this information, Holloway felt the situation was not dealt with in the best possible way by the Oilers. He said: "We were trying to get a deal done. I don’t think we were asking for anything crazy at all. If anything we were very upfront with Edmonton the whole time, even about the whole offer sheet. We explained, ‘Hey, this was an option for us. Can we get a deal?’ And it was weird the way they handled it. I felt I had no other option but to sign the offer sheet."
The 22-year-old is clearly hurt by how things played out, with his preference to remain in Edmonton. Further, we entirely understand why he felt compelled to sign the offer sheet, if the Oilers were indeed not making him a decent offer.
This is given more credence, when you are aware of comments from Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, in a recent edition of his 32 Thoughts column. The highly respected Friedman wrote that Holloway's camp received one- and two-year offers during July, at approximately $850,000 and $1 million respectively.
As much as the Oilers were dealing with financial restraints from a tight salary cap situation, these figures from Friedman do sound particularly miserly. As such, if someone comes along and offers just over $2.29 million x two years, it's entirely understandable why Holloway would sign the offer sheet.
Oilers don't budge despite Holloway's best efforts
In this respect, as the Calgary native said, he actually went to the Oilers first about the offer sheet before signing it, hoping to persuade them to up their price. However, if the Oilers still didn't feel compelled to budge on their own offer, fans shouldn't really be blaming him for doing what he did.
The whole thing is a shame, because Holloway is a talented player who wanted to stay in Edmonton and showed during these past playoffs what he is capable of. However, when push came to shove, it does seem like the Oilers really did give him little choice.
As for Holloway's description of the Oilers' approach being weird, you can't help but wonder how much new general manager Stan Bowman was involved in the negotiations, or lack thereof? Certainly, we know there are a lot of people looking for any excuse to criticise the controversial Bowman.
Regardless, Holloway is now gone, having learnt a valuable but painful lesson about the world of professional sports. As he said to Strickland: "It was definitely hard. You have a good group of guys. You want to be with them forever, but at the end of the day it doesn’t work like that. Hockey ultimately is a business and you've got to look after yourself. That’s kind of the advice I was given from a lot of guys too. You've got to take care of yourself first."
Overall, we do believe the Oilers should have made more of an effort to bring Holloway back and it must be infuriating to fans, after getting more insight into how the whole situation played out. Instead of coming back, he joined the likes of Broberg, Warren Foegele and Vincent Desharnais as players considered to be key departures from last season's roster.