The opening round of the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs are rounding out, with just three more teams left to advance. All three of those series could wrap up tonight if the Buffalo Sabres, Montreal Canadiens, and Vegas Golden Knights all come out victorious.

For those teams that have been eliminated, the offseason now focuses on extensions or having one last dose of competitive hockey before the summer by representing their nations at the upcoming IIHF World Championships. And those are the two news points we will hit today.

The St. Louis Blues announced on Friday that they have extended forward Dylan Holloway to a five-year, $7.75 million AAV contract.

Holloway, 24, was originally selected in the first round (14th overall) of the 2020 NHL Draft by the Edmonton Oilers. He didn’t make his NHL debut until the 2022-23 season, where he scored three goals and six assists for nine points in 51 games. Holloway matched his stat line from the following year, when he scored six goals and three assists for nine points, but in 13 fewer games. Come playoff time, Holloway became a fixture in the Oilers’ lineup, playing all 25 games, scoring five goals and two assists for seven points, en route to a Game 7 Stanley Cup Final loss to the Florida Panthers.

That playoff run, specifically Game 4 of the Final, where he scored two goals and one assist, officially made Holloway a promising young piece to help the Oilers moving forward. However, that’s when the St. Louis Blues stepped in.

On August 13, 2024, the Oilers had not yet come to terms on a pair of restricted free agents: Holloway and Philip Broberg. Later that day, the Blues extended offer sheets to both Oilers players, handing Holloway a two-year, $2,290,457 AAV contract and Broberg a two-year, $4,580,917 AAV deal. Both were relatively affordable contracts at the time. Still, the Oilers decided to let them go and take the second-round compensation for Broberg and the third-round compensation for Holloway.

Safe to say that was a mistake.

Holloway has blossomed into a top offensive producer for the Blues, registering 63 points in 77 games in 2024-25 and 51 points in 59 games this season — all of that production on a sub-$2.3 million contract. The Oilers certainly could have used that depth scoring help them in these last two postseason runs.

To poke fun even further at the Oilers’ expense by announcing the extension the day after they were eliminated from the playoffs is great work by the Blues.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman shared on his social media Friday morning that Chicago Blackhawks forward Connor Bedard would not be joining Team Canada at the upcoming IIHF World Championships.

Friedman goes on to mention that Bedard wanted to go but will instead skip the event to rehab a mid-December shoulder injury that lingered throughout the year.

Bedard would miss just under a month, but returned from that shoulder injury on January 9 against the Washington Capitals. He went on to play 38 games with the nagging shoulder injury, in which he scored 11 goals and 31 points.

While Team Canada’s entire roster has not yet been confirmed, TSN’s Darren Dreger reported that Macklin Celebrini, Mark Scheifele, Mat Barzal, Morgan Rielly, and 2026 top prospect Gavin McKenna will represent Canada in mid-May.