The NHL world is still reeling after the news that the St. Louis Blues tendered offer sheets to Edmonton Oilers’ restricted free agents Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway. Offer sheets can be a tricky way for general managers to benefit from another team’s desperation. The Oilers are pressed against the salary cap, so the short-term, multi-million dollar offers have forced general manager (GM) Stan Bowman to reallocate funds. Cody Ceci’s $3.25 million cap hit has already been shipped to San Jose, giving the Oilers some breathing room. Bowman has until Aug. 20 to match the offers.
Related: Ducks Offseason Acquisitions Revisted: Chris Pronger
In 2007, the Oilers were in a different kind of desperation. Two years removed from a Game 7 Stanley Cup Final loss, then-GM Kevin Lowe was struggling to keep the band together. The first domino to fall was massive — a disgruntled Chris Pronger wanted out and was traded to the Anaheim Ducks in the 2006 offseason. The Oilers declined from 95 points in 2005-06 to only 71 in 2006-07. After trading away leading scorer Ryan Smyth during the 2007 Trade Deadline, Lowe needed to make a move during the offseason to juice the offense.
Turned away by big-name free agents, the Oilers tried to offer sheet Thomas Vanek, but the Buffalo Sabres quickly matched the offer but made it clear they were less than thrilled with Lowe’s strategy. Unfazed by the backlash, he continued to scour the market until he found a new target — Anaheim’s Dustin Penner.
Burke and Lowe Nearly Go to Blows Over Offer Sheet
At 24 years old, Penner had a breakout 2006-07 season with the Ducks. He recorded 29 goals and 16 assists during the regular season and pitched in another eight points during the postseason to help Anaheim win the Stanley Cup. He was a member of the fondly-remembered “kid line” with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry that led the club in scoring during the postseason run.
Regardless of whether or not it was revenge for the lopsided Pronger trade a year prior that bolstered Anaheim’s Cup run, the Ducks were an easy target to poach from. The cost to maintain a contending team is high, and they couldn’t afford to match the $4.3 million salary Penner agreed to.
Like the Sabres front office before him, Ducks GM Brian Burke was furious. He wasn’t shy about it, either, as he suggested Lowe’s moves were desperate attempts from someone “fighting to keep his job.” The two had a very public beef that would play out on the radio circuit, but it also carried on privately as Burke arranged to rent a barn near Lake Placid so the two 50-year-old men could settle the score with fisticuffs. Commissioner Gary Bettman caught wind of this, threatening indefinite suspensions and forcing cooler heads to prevail.
Aftermath in Anaheim
The Ducks were awarded Edmonton’s first, second, and third-round picks in the 2008 NHL Draft as a result of losing Penner. The Ducks traded down in the first round and picked Jake Gardiner, used the second-round pick on Justin Schultz, and traded the third away to the New York Islanders for Marc-Andre Bergeron.
Although Gardiner never suited up for the Ducks, his selection had the longest legs of any of the three. He was packaged in a deal to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Francois Beauchemin. This marked the second, and longest, of three separate stints with the Ducks for Beauchemin. Schultz, to the chagrin of many Ducks fans, never played with the club and became an unrestricted free agent after his college career ended at Wisconsin. Bergeron was dealt to the Minnesota Wild for a 2008 third-round pick the Ducks used to draft Brandon McMillan. He was eventually traded to the Phoenix Coyotes for Matthew Lombardi in 2013, who played his last seven NHL games in Anaheim.
Penner’s Tenure in Edmonton
Penner went on to play three and a half up-and-down seasons for the Oilers, registering 186 points in 304 games, but the wheels were falling off in Edmonton. After a 20-35-8 start to the 2010-11 season, the Oilers traded Penner to the Los Angeles Kings. The following season, Penner helped the Kings win the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history.
In exchange for Penner, the Oilers received Colten Teubert, a first-round pick in 2011, and a third-round pick in 2012. Teubert had a brief 24-game stint in Edmonton before signing a contract in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. While their third-round pick, Daniil Zharkov, never made his way to North America, the Oilers had a hit with their first-round pick by drafting defenseman Oscar Klefbom.
Offer Sheets Remain Dangerous Game
Every few years, offer sheets come into play during an NHL offseason and threaten to topple the status quo. Feelings get hurt and revenge is threatened, but rarely does anything materialize. Penner’s offer sheet is only one of two in the salary cap era that wasn’t matched and was the only instance until the Carolina Hurricanes poached Jesperi Kotkaniemi from the Montreal Canadiens in 2021. That offer sheet was widely seen as revenge for the Canadiens trying to offer sheet Carolina’s Sebastian Aho two years prior. This recent example is a testament to just how precarious this method of deal-making can be. Burke and Lowe’s feud only cooled when Burke’s son, Brendan, tragically passed away in a car crash in February 2010. Brendan had advocated for the two to reconcile (from, “Brian Burke Plotted to Fist Fight Kevin Lowe in a Barn. But Bettman Put an End to It,” Edmonton Journal, Dec. 2, 2011).
With offer sheets on the mind, it’s not unreasonable to think about the Ducks’ restricted free agents. Only 12 offer sheets have been signed in the salary cap era, but they always bring the fear of a “new normal” where it becomes more commonplace. Over the next two offseasons, Mason McTavish, Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Trevor Zegras, Pavel Mintyukov, and Olen Zellweger will need new deals. While the Ducks have plenty of cap space to work with right now, they’ll likely want to sign them to cheap deals, opening the door to a team tendering an offer way over market value.
