Will the NHL See More Teams Use the Offer Sheet?
The St. Louis Blues did the unthinkable on Tuesday, using an underutilized tool known as the offer sheet.
St. Louis sent one offer sheet for two players on the Edmonton Oilers roster: Forward Dylan Holloway and defenseman Philip Broberg. How rare are offer sheets? Well, this Blues offer sheet is just the 10th we have had since 2007.
The last one was in 2021 when the Carolina Hurricanes sent an offer sheet to Jesperi Kotkaniemi, a Montreal Canadiens member. That was a payback for the Sebastian Aho offer sheet issued by Montreal in 2019.
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Of the nine offer sheets before Tuesday, two were successful Dustin Penner in 2007 by Edmonton and Kotkaniemi in 2021. The other seven offer sheets were matched: Thomas Vanek in 2007, David Backes in 2008, Steve Bernier in 2008, Niklas Hjalmarsson in 2010), Shea Weber in 2012), Ryan O’Reilly in 2013, and Aho in 2019.
With the salary cap increasing, could we see more general managers utilizing this tool more often?
TSN: TSN Director of Scouting Craig Button joined Sarah Davis on SportsCentre to discuss this topic in a Hot or Not segment. Craig was asked about the offer sheets presented by the St. Louis Blues and GM Doug Armstrong and if more general managers around the NHL should be using them.
** NHLRumors.com transcriptions
Sarah Davis: “It’s time for another edition of Hot or Not with our director of scouting, Craig Button. And you all know how this works; I’m going to make a statement, Craig will tell us if it’s hot or not. We’re going to start with offer sheets. We don’t see them used often in the NHL, but Craig, we saw the St Louis Blues give offer sheets to a pair of Oilers on Tuesday. Now, more general managers should use offer sheets, Hot or Not. Craig.”
Craig Button: “Hot, but I understand why it could be not. The reason that you’re not seeing more offer sheets is because largely, teams have been unsuccessful in acquiring players through the offer sheet process.
But Doug Armstrong and the St. Louis Blues went creative. They went with younger players. They did two at the same time, and I think that we’re seeing now some different thinking when it comes to offer sheets. So, yeah, more general managers should become more creative, which should lead to more offer sheets.”
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Hopefully, the NHL sees this going forward as the NBA sees more offer sheets with their free agents. However, the gentlemen’s agreement and the unwritten rule amongst the GMs say these could still be Sparsh.”