HENDERSON, NV — Robert Thomas had a front-row seat for the panic wrought by his general manager on the Edmonton Oilers. And he couldn’t be happier.
The St. Louis Blues star was having a post-workout lunch at Gary Roberts’ training camp with four core Oilers — Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, and Darnell Nurse — on Aug. 13 when all the NHLers’ phones blew up with news of the surprise moves.
Blues GM Doug Armstrong had hit the Oilers with a double offer sheet of restricted free agents Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, setting in motion a successful plot to swipe two of the Stanley Cup finalists’ more promising youngsters.
“A couple of them were just looking at me like, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ I was so happy. You couldn’t take the smile off my face for 20 minutes,” Thomas, still grinning, recounted for a taping of 32 Thoughts: The Podcast at the Player Media Tour.
“Hey, you gotta go after the best in West.”
Thomas is a native of Aurora, Ont., not far from where Roberts runs his gruelling annual summer camps and where McDavid, Draisaitl & Co. have been regulars.
“Of course, there’s some disappointment,” Draisaitl said.
“I mean, we lost two of our young, really good hockey players that were going to be our future and are big parts of the team. But at the end of the day, that’s just the way the business goes. It’s in the rulebook. You’re allowed to do it. End of story.”
Thomas said he was aware that Armstrong had an interest in Broberg, a promising young defenceman, and Holloway, who appeared in 25 playoff games during the Oilers’ run to the final.
But even Thomas was caught off-guard… in a good way.
“I was having a great time,” Thomas said.
“They weren’t too happy. I teased them for a couple weeks.”