The Flames have been “battling for one another” to keep their playoff hopes alive.
They’ll look to do more of the same in a Battle of Alberta matchup with the Oilers on Saturday.
The Friday Four is a collection of thoughts and information on some intriguing player storylines from around the NHL. On deck this week:
• Holloway bet paying off for Blues
• Can Makar get to 30 goals?
• Caps in great shape with Protas brothers
• Allen making a case to be Devils playoff starter
Dylan Holloway, St. Louis Blues
After missing the playoffs for two straight seasons, the St. Louis Blues needed a change last summer. Many of the key contributors from their Stanley Cup-winning team had moved on and the roster was stagnant. The Blues were stuck in the mushy middle, not good enough to make the playoffs and not bad enough to get a high draft pick. That’s the last place you want to be in the NHL.
St. Louis faced two choices. Either tear it down completely and rebuild, or add and make a push for the playoffs. It initially looked like the Blues were going with the former, following a quiet free agency where they didn’t make any kind of a major splash. But GM Doug Armstrong was planning to go down a different path and struck with a pair of carefully planned offers sheets in the middle of August for Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg. The Edmonton Oilers chose not to match and the Blues suddenly added a good young player to both their defence corps and forward group, immediately giving their roster more balance.
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The new additions didn’t pay immediate dividends in the win column, though. St. Louis fired head coach Drew Bannister after a slow start to the season and replaced him with Jim Montgomery, and Broberg missed most of November with an injury. However, Holloway has been a constant for the Blues all season and exactly the type of player they were looking for to bring them back to relevance.
Holloway is on pace for 29 goals and 69 points after struggling to get minutes in a crowded Oilers lineup. He never played more than 51 games in a season and never averaged more than 11 minutes or so a night in Edmonton, but he’s flourished with more opportunities. The 23-year-old has found a home in the Blues top six and his versatility has been a huge asset, as in addition to his offensive numbers, Holloway has also thrown 157 hits to bring an element of physicality to the lineup.
Where Holloway has really helped the Blues is down the stretch, as St. Louis has surged up the standings and all of a sudden has an excellent chance to land a playoff spot. Holloway is on a nine-game point streak and has tallied 15 points over that stretch, as the Blues have won their past eight games. With Jordan Binnington coming off a big-game performance at the 4 Nations and Colton Parayko soon to rejoin the lineup, St. Louis not only looks like it could make the post-season but make some noise when it gets there, too.
Given how swimmingly this has worked out for Holloway and the Blues, will we see more offer sheets this summer? They are typically very rare, but with the cap going up, teams could be more inclined to go this route if they don’t get what they want in free agency. The key with the Holloway and Broberg offer sheets was that they were very targeted toward a team that was not only in a tight cap situation but trying to win right away. The Oilers had already signed Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson on July 1, and to retain Holloway and Broberg at the price St. Louis set, it would’ve required Edmonton to move off veteran players and perform some major cap gymnastics. Also, what the Blues had to give up when the Oilers didn’t match, a second- and third-round pick, wasn’t astronomical.
There are definitely some talented young players that could be perfect for offer sheets in the off-season. Matthew Knies, Marco Rossi, Mavrik Bourque and Mackie Samoskevich all be could facing challenging contract situations based on the ability they’ve shown and their teams’ cap situation. It’s unlikely we’ll see a handful of offer sheets this summer, but with the success St. Louis had and all the promising young talent available, it seems reasonable that some organizations would be more willing to take a chance than in years past.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but now that we’ve seen the fallout of the Holloway and Broberg offer sheets for close to a full season, it would be hard to argue Edmonton made the right choice. Skinner and Arvidsson haven’t been a great fit and giving more responsibility to Holloway and Broberg would’ve set them up better now and in the future. Their loss is the Blues’ gain.