Oilers’ last offer sheet almost sparked a barn fight with Brian Burke
The Edmonton Oilers are certainly not happy with the situation the St. Louis Blues have put them in with a couple of pricey offer sheets to RFAs Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg.
Offer-sheeting an opposing team’s players is not a common practice around the NHL and is one that is typically looked down upon as being disrespectful to other GMs. Yet, despite the taboo, it still tends to rear its ugly head every so often and it can sometimes lead to some pretty fiery exchanges.
Edmonton is no stranger to starting feuds with offer sheets as the team was part of one of the most vitriolic instances in the summer of 2007 when then-Oilers GM Kevin Lowe stole away Dustin Penner from the cap-strapped Anaheim Ducks with a five-year, $21.5 million offer sheet.
Brian Burke, who was the GM of the Ducks, was not too happy about the lack of communication from Lowe before the offer sheet was submitted and made that known through various interviews following the move.
When Lowe was asked about Burke’s issue with the offer sheet, Lowe unloaded on Burke live on-air during a segment with the Edmonton-based radio station 630 CHED, calling him a “moron” and an “underachieving wannabe.”
This, understandably, upset Burke, who took this as an invitation to fight. In true Burke fashion, the fiery NHL executive took things to the next level.
“I called Glen Sather [after hearing the Lowe interview]… and I said, ‘Your buddy just challenged me to a fight; that’s not how you challenge someone to a fight,'” Burke told Jeff Marek in a 2021 Sportsnet segment on the ordeal.
“I said ‘I’m going to be in Lake Placid on August 1st, 2nd, and 3rd… tell [Lowe] to get his butt up there, I’ll rent a barn, I’ll kick the crap out of him, I’ll drive him to the hospital, and we’ll get this all put behind us.'”
Sather was not a fan of the idea and must have tipped off the league about Burke’s plan to fight the Oilers GM in a rented-out barn. NHL commissioner called Burke shortly after to check in on the situation and threatened to dole out lengthy suspensions to both Burke and Lowe if any fight occurred, effectively putting an end to the whole ordeal.
Though the fight was off, Burke said he made the Oilers wait the entire seven-day period, even though he knew that the Ducks would not be able to match the offer from the beginning.
You might think that such an intense feud would have carried on to this day, but Burke says that he has since mended fences with Lowe and the two remain good friends as of 2021.
A barn fight between Blues GM Doug Armstrong and Stan Bowman is probably not forthcoming, but it’s fair to think that they are probably not on the greatest of terms right now.