Dylan Holloway Opens Up About Oilers' "Weird" Stance in Contract Negotiations

After losing both Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway to the St. Louis Blues on offer sheets, there has been much speculation about just how much the Oilers tried to keep their two young players before the offer sheets came in.

Holloway has now opened up, and admits he was surprised by the stance the Oilers took in contract negotiations with him, calling the whole situation "weird," not once, but twice.

We knew about the offer sheet before we even had any negotiations with Edmonton, which was kind of weird. We were trying to get a deal done and I didn’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 to them, ‘Hey, this is an option for us. Can we get a deal?’

But according to Holloway, the Oilers weren't moved at all by the $2.29 million AAV, two-year offer the Blues were going to bring to the table, and they just never came close to coming up from their own offer, which was less than half of that.

It was weird the way they handled it, so I felt like I had no other option but to sign the offer sheet.

From the way that Holloway explains it, it appears that he would have liked to stay in Edmonton, but the Oilers really gave him no choice with their hard stance.

They wouldn't come up from their reported three-year offer of a $1.05-million AAV.

The 22-year-old's speed and two-way play made him a regular in the Edmonton lineup this season, including the entire 25-game run to the Stanley Cup Finals. He recorded five goals and seven points with a +4 rating in the playoffs, while contributing nine points in 38 games while healthy during the regular season, at 11:22 time on ice per game.

The former 14th overall selection (2020 Draft) is now excited to take on a bigger role with the retooling Blues. He says there were "no hard feelings" with his former Oilers teammates.