I thought it was the last that I'd see of CJ all summer until at least after Labor Day. But here we are again, next day. Chris, we finally have an idea of what's going to happen between Edmonton and St. Louis when it comes to the offer sheets. Broberg and Holloway are officially St. Louis Blues, but there was a trade, a lot to break down. So let's start with this. We haven't had a lot of offer sheets accepted in the last little bit. Can you remember the last time that an offer sheet was not only accepted, but then followed through on. The team didn't match.

Yeah, I guess it would be a, you went from Montreal to Carolina a couple of years back. But the idea that we have two players moving, two players moving to the same team in one stroke. I mean, this is definitely a different use of this mechanism. Obviously, I'd say offer sheets really haven't been that effective in really 20 years in the NHL. But I wonder if this is an isolated instance. A lot had to come together, I guess, where this made sense for St. Louis to get these players under contract just at the numbers they did. But I do think that this could be a window into something that's a little bit more commonly used down the line, especially when a team has multiple restricted free agents, because by doing it with two, I think it creates a little bit more uncertainty around the decision making. And in this case, the Blues were obviously successful landing two players that were selected in the at least not too distant pass in the first round by Edmonton.

And with St. Louis, they are getting two young players. I don't think there's a single Ken Holland draft pick now slated to be in the Edmonton Oilers lineup for this season, which is crazy to think. They'll go in, and we don't know exactly what the spots that they'll take up on the St. Louis roster will be, but you would expect probably that Broberg is... They're at least going to give him a shot within I mean, he's going to be top six, but could he be top four? What do you think? What roles are these guys going to play with the St. Louis Blues?

Well, I mean, they're jumping to a team that was one goal, one game shy of winning the Stanley Cup in June to one that is in the process of retooling on the fly. When you see organizations do that, obviously, the Blues are transitioning to being younger. The bet here, if you want to call it that, is that these players have matured. They've each seen time between the American Ocult League NHL, they played playoff games for the Oilers last spring, that they're ready to take a step. That's the whole justification for doing this if you're on the blues end of things. I mean, you've probably offered both players slightly inflated contracts on what they should get next year. That's part of the cost of doing business here in order to get them on your roster. I think St. Louis is going to be heavily motivated to give them more opportunity than they've had in the past in the NHL and see if they can blossom into impactful or more impactful players than they've already been. And if that's successful, I mean, look, you've basically gamed the system here. You've given up a second rounder and a third rounder to get them as part of the compensation package to Edmonton, and you're basically getting players who are ready to enter your lineup and make an impact.

So it's a pretty low risk gamble from the blues end of things because they had the cap space in order to make these maneuvers. And it's a bit of a poison pill on Edmonton side of the ledger where they've made some moves. They've tried to mitigate the impact of it, but there's no way around it. They've just lost two players. They've invested a lot of time and resources into to develop them into players that might be ready to make more of an impact as NHLers.

Now, when it comes to Broberg and Holloway, I believe one of them was reported, his agent had to say, You got to sign this. You got to sign this deal. When players are offered, restricted free agents are offered contracts, probably more than we think, why would it take convincing for a player to sign one? I mean, it obviously... I mean, they make a lot more money. Can you give us a little insight on that?

Yeah, I think it comes down to the fact that not everyone's motivated by money to the same degree. I mean, in some case, you've obviously built friendships Within an organization, you might like where you're playing. You might like everything about the situation except for the contract that's on the table, right? In this case, obviously, Dylan Holloway was a fairly regular member. The Oilers last year, I'm sure he knows how close that team is and was to winning a Stanley Cup. I'm sure there's some mixed emotions in this, but from a financial standpoint, it's a no-brainer. Broberg spent most of last year playing in Bakersfield, where he was not earning very much money because he was still on his entry-level deal. Now he's going to make almost $4.6 million on his new deal annually. I can understand some of that push and pull. Frankly, that's part of the offer sheet mechanism. I don't know how often players are I actually offer sheets, if that makes sense. But I certainly know a lot of agents go around and have conversations with other teams where they may point out that they have a certain restricted free agent client who could be a potential target for one.

A lot has to come together. The player obviously has to want to sign it, has to maybe put aside some of those feelings, and ultimately decide it's the best thing for his family or his future to take on a contract like that. But it's It's perfectly legal under the CBA. There's nothing wrong with this. But if you think about it from a personal standpoint, you're putting your old boss in a tough spot. If you're maybe forcing them to want to have to sign you to a contract that's above your market value. I think it just goes without saying. Some players probably have no problem with that. They're like, Hey, this is business. This is how it operates, whereas others might be a little more conflicted when making those decisions.

When Cody CC moved, we thought that the Edmondson Oilers were probably going to match at least one of those contracts, or at At least that was the assumption a lot of people made, because if you haven't traded Cody CC to this point in the summer, it seems awfully connected to what the St. Louis Blues just did. They offer, she did these two players. Cody CC gets moved to San Jose I'll never forgive Mike Greer for letting Edmonton off the hook. Even so, Edmonton still obviously didn't match either of those offers. The Cody CC element of this, was this connected or was that deal already in place and that was going to happen and it It just hadn't happened yet?

No, it's definitely connected. Look, Edmonton was put in a tough spot here. They were given seven days to make decisions on Broberg and hallway and their contracts. I think that's obviously sent them to the marketplace. They went and traded for Vasili, put Kholzen from Vancouver. It was a forward that they think, given maybe a fresh start, could become the player he was once tabbed to be when Vancouver selected him. And then they go make the Cody City deal, which, of course, the focus is on CC. He's the bigger name I've been around the league a long time, played a pretty sizable role for Edmonton last year. But they're getting a player by the name of Ty Emberson back in that deal from the Sharks. And while he's not as well known of a quantity to hockey fans, he did play for Chris Noblek with the Hartford Wolfpack a couple of years ago. So has ties to the head coach, is a young player, probably projects to be a bottom-pairing guy. But I think when you look at the totality of the moves the oilers have created cap space. They put themselves in a position where they could have matched either or both of these offer sheets by the time they made the moves they did.

And they've also added Embersum and and Podkholzen, which maybe certainly aren't necessarily at the level, I think, where people view Holloway and Broberg, but they've replaced them with at least younger other options to move forward with. From a tough position to deal from, I think that that all makes sense. But I don't believe in a world where there was no offer sheets, I don't think that this CC trade happens at least right now to San Jose. But that forced Edmonton's management's hands to have to start looking at the way that the different deck chairs could move, and that's where they landed.

So Edmonton will be able to accumulate cap space throughout the season. Even though it doesn't look like they have much now, that is a multiplier that every single day gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Do you expect them to add on the back-end? Because frankly, you look their line combinations right now, it looks a little thin.

It does. But what Edmonton has done is now they put themselves in position. If they don't add any more salary between now and opening night, is they won't have to start the season using LTIR. The reason that is significant is that means that they would accrue cap space as the season went along and be in a good spot. It's impossible to predict these things because whether they have significant injuries as the year goes on or not. But at least sitting now, they would be in a position where they could have a fair amount of cap space leading up to the trade deadline. That means would probably give them more options when it came to scouring the trade market. I would think for now, look, Stan Bowman doesn't just shut his phone off and say, Okay, my work here is done. It doesn't mean that anything could be rolled out more short term, but I think more than likely Edmonton enters the year with the players they have. Let the training camp battles go as they will. Look what comes through waivers. Sometimes a player that we wouldn't expect to be available today, might be available on the way or wire.

Really where Edmonton's at is they actually have the ability to do things. So many teams that are trying to win a Stanley Cup do not have that amount of flexibility. So many of those teams historically have been right at the cap all year long or above the cap using the LTIR mechanism, which really affects, it has to be a money in, money out trades. I think Edmondson is now a better position to do some more creative things between now and the trade deadline. I think that they feel pretty comfortable with the team they have today, knowing that they will be adding to it, that they're going to make moves before the deadline. The team that starts the first day of training camp will not be the team that enters the Stanley Cup playoffs next spring.

Right. Help me understand One last thing, Chris, because this part this morning didn't make a lot of sense. If you know that a team is not going to match an offer sheet, why do you give them Paul Fischer at a third round pick in 2028? That's what St. Louis sent to Edmonton this morning for essentially nothing, which is future considerations. What's the reasoning for this? What does that do?

Well, the best way to describe it is that St. Louis didn't know 100% for certain that Edmonton wouldn't match the offer sheets until that inducement was included and put on the table. Essentially, what the Blues did is they guaranteed themselves with certainty by making this second move that Edmonton would let both players walk. Seven days ago, when they put the offer sheets on the table, Well, Edmonton was in a difficult spot. They really, at that point in time, you're allowed to go 10% over the salary cap in the summer. But reasonably speaking, they would not have been in a position to match. But after unloading Cody CC's contract, they were in a better situation, obviously, with Evander Cain likely to start the year on injured reserve or LTIR, whichever they need. They could have matched one or both of the contracts. Ultimately, St. Louis was obviously pretty committed to getting these players more than just what they offered them, more than just being willing to pay the compensation of a second rounder for Broberg and a third rounder for Holloway. So they've thrown in an extra third rounder in 2028 and an unsigned prospect they have in Paul Fisher to really make the deal happen.

So if we want to look at it as almost like a trade, St. Louis gets Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway. Edmonton gets a 2025 second round pick and third round pick, a 2028 third rounder, and the rights to a prospect. So I think it still comes out from a... If you put that through those calculators where they value what the picks are. St. Louis comes out on the better end of things just because they have more certainty in what those players can be and might be, whereas draft picks are a little bit more of a lottery ticket. But I think under the circumstances, Edmonton, after getting caught, what's the best way to put it? Pants down. Yeah, pants down a little bit. They put themselves in a tough position. I think that in the last week, the Oilers at least made a series of moves to mitigate the impact of what will be felt losing those two players.

I love the osmosis effect of the NBA on the NHL. A 2028 third-round pick is either, depending on their birthday, 13 or 14 years old as of today. I think whatever that 13 or 14-year-old gets selected in 2028, it's going to be very interesting, and that'll be a fun thing to look back on. Haven't seen a whole lot of that. Chris, listen, seeing a whole lot of you in the last 24 hours. I have loved it, but I want to let you get back to your vacation. Thanks for making time this morning, buddy. Appreciate it.

Let's keep it busy in August, and there will be no vacation. The NHL has been in pretty fire these last two weeks.