The Edmonton Oilers' top defensive prospect is ready to take the next step in his development.
It is a pivotal year for the Edmonton Oilers organization. Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid are getting close to the end of their current contracts. The organization needs to show these star players that they are committed to icing a Stanley Cup contending line up every season.
Part of that comes with deciding who should stay or who should be dealt at the deadline. One player in the proverbial hot seat for the Oilers is non other than Philip Broberg. The young rearguard is on the last year of his ELC contract and needs to push all of his chips in this season.
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Broberg has come to camp prepared. Before training camp he was 199 lbs - he's now 212. Putting on weight can help with the physical aspects of the game. The mental side of playing a lot of minutes on defense will take practice.
So far in exhibition games he is playing a lot of minutes. He's played in five games and his ice time has been 18:59, 17:22, 19:00, 22:53 & 19:22. That's an average of 19:31. That's very comfortable second pairing minutes. In the last pre-season contest against the Calgary Flames he was paired with Cody Ceci. They skated 14:22 together at even strength - over two minutes more than the Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard pairing.
He is contributing a lot on the penalty kill to boot with 0:55, 5:30, 2:17, 4:10, 1:52 in shorthanded minutes. The coaching staff has backed up their word in giving him more minutes. In previous exhibition games before this year Broberg never played more than 14:11 on average.
Pairing Broberg with Mattias Ekholm and deploying him how they have in the pre-season (minus the power play time he's received) should be a recipe for success. Both for Broberg and for the Oilers.
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