The so-called offer sheet disrupted the relatively calm summer events in the NHL abroad, ie a controversial management move reminiscent of poaching. In this case, it was even a double loot. His biggest winners seem to be “stolen” hockey players.
These were only the eleventh and twelfth such cases since the wage allowances were introduced 19 years ago.
General Manager St. Louis Doug Armstrong immediately signed two defensive free agents with a foreign club, Edmonton. It was Swedish defender Philip Broberg and Canadian forward Dylan Holloway.
Armstrong’s partner, Stan Bowman, who only took the chair of the Canadian club at the end of July, was able to keep the couple by matching the offer. But he refused because of budget plans within the tight salary cap.
He would prefer to accept compensation in the form of picks in the second and third rounds of the 2025 draft.
It is not a big surprise. Armstrong, whose salary level is not as big as it is now, paid too much money to the selected players. And very much so.
It is as if an employee with an average Czech salary of 37 thousand crowns received an offer from a competing company not for 40 or 50 thousand, but for 150.
This is especially true of 23-year-old Broberg, who was reportedly offered $1.1 million by Edmonton. From St. Louis was given a two-year contract with an annual salary of nearly $4.6 million gross.
For a hockey player who spent most of last season on an AHL farm, this is dream money, well above market value. He earns more than, for example, the Czech wrestler Radko Gudas.
Dylan Holloway, who is twenty-two, will earn an average of 2.3 million per year during the two-year collaboration. He also appeared on the farm in his final year, although he eventually spent more time in the NHL.
“Yes, Armstrong overpaid those players,” he wrote Jeremy Rutherford, a journalist specializing in St. Louis Blues. “But if they play the way the Blues see it, it won’t matter. The Blues had a place and this was the only way to get two good players from another club for only second and third draft picks tour.”
St. So Louis is counting on the fact that Broberg and Holloway will protect their – for now unsustainable – price tag over time.
They will get a chance to do that. The talented Broberg could play regularly on the second pair of defense on a team that is weaker on paper than Edmonton. Holloway could be the wing of Czech center Radek Faksa in the third line.
By the way, the two hockey players “stolen” passed the first round of the draft. In the regular season of the NHL, however, they played only 170 games together in three years and did not always prove their specialness.
“We probably overpaid them, if you want to put it that way, but it wasn’t a difficult decision for us because we have limited space. And when their contracts expire, the salary cap should be around 100 million. (for next season it’s 88 million dollars, editor’s note). We believe this is a good investment for us,” Armstrong explained in his offer sheets.
He does not see them as morally wrong. After all, they completely comply with the rules.
“If there’s a code circulating among managers that this shouldn’t be done, I haven’t received anything by email. It’s just a tool that everyone uses and should to use,” he said.
He also disputed allegations that Edmonton’s former general manager, the legendary Ken Holland, would not be willing to move any players.
“Couldn’t be further from the truth. To be honest, I would do that for my own mother if she was in the Edmonton manager’s chair. My job is to take care of fans St.Louis and the whole group, and here’s your chance to do that.
2024-08-22 17:54:34
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