GM of the Edmonton Oilers Stan Bowman speaks at a press conference
Photo credit: Reddit

Stan Bowman has been freshly hired as GM of the Edmonton Oilers, and despite all the controversy, he will need to be hard at work figuring out their salary cap.

The Oilers currently sit $354,167 over the salary cap, as per PuckPedia. This means that they will either need to make some trades, or buy out certain players. The two players that could be on the chopping block are Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg.

Everyone is wondering what the cost is going to be to sign these two players. Oilers Now host Bob Staueffer said the team will not want to spend too much more over $1 million on each player, and likely a two-year deal. They would then be a further 2 or $3 million over the cap after they were to sign these two.

The @EdmontonOilers Dylan Holloway saw significant time in EDM’s top 9 FWDS during the Stanley Cup Playoffs and responded with 5 goals. Despite the additions of Jeff Skinner and Victor Arvidsson I have a sneaking suspicion that Holloway will play his way up the line-up this season.

Bowman will need to work his magic to then get his team under the cap. That’s when players could be at risk, and there is no guarantee that even though Holloway and Broberg would have just been signed, that they wouldn’t necessarily be traded. We have seen plenty sign-and-trade deals in the NHL before.

The Oilers will absolutely be making moves over the next few weeks as no teams are allowed to start the season over the cap, so it will be interesting to see how Bowman cleans up the reckless spending mess that his predecessor left.