Letting Holloway and Broberg walk could be the best thing for Oilers' cup chances

With Bowman's decision made and neither of the RFAs matched, the Oilers have to fill the gaps left by both players. Not only that, but they now have very scathing comparisons to be made when it comes to bringing players in to replace both Holloway and Broberg.

They decided not to match the offer sheets due to their disinterest in overpaying just to keep players' rights, which goes along with their philosophy that they've had when trying to build a cup contending roster.

The Oilers have built a roster out of attracting players with their cup contending pedigree, and paying them less than market value to create more cap to spend on other players. If they were to blatantly overpay just to retain rights to their two RFAs and hope that they pan out how they're expected to, then that goes against the philosophy that they've built this team on.

The Oilers have tried to maximize the contracts that they sign their depth players to, so they have more money to spend on their superstars like McDavid and Draisaitl. Bowman decided that he just couldn't justify paying players who were that inexperienced to such high cap hits, which the Blues can do because of their cap space.

These are two players who aren't massive losses right now, but could be in the future. Both were only 23 and had lots of room to develop in the system. Despite this, the facts are that neither player was worth as much as they got right now. Both players showed promise in the playoffs, but had underwhelming regular season stats.

The Blues are taking a big gamble here, one that the Oilers couldn't risk taking. The Oilers still got a second and two thirds out of the deal, so they still got a decent return for the two departures. If Bowman can use these picks and the salary space correctly, the Oilers can turn a sticky situation into a positive for the future of the franchise.