Oilers Part Ways With Manny Viveiros and Trent Yawney – Woodcroft Stays

We knew there was likely going to be some turnover on the side of the assistant coaches, but it appears as though Glen Gulutzan is the last man standing and will remain behind the bench while Yawney and Viveiros depart.

It has been rumoured in the past week that Trent Yawney would leave Edmonton and join Todd McLellan in LA.  Considering Yawney was a McLellan hire this shouldn’t come as a shock, though it is dissapointing.  Yawney spent most of his NHL career in Anaheim and helped coach the slew of young talented defensemen there.  Hampus Lindholm, Brandon Montour, Shea Theodore, Cam Fowler, all of them have personally stated how much Yawney had helped their game.

In Edmonton the case was similar with a number of players on the backend praising Yawney.  Darnell Nurse had a career year last season and made some huge strides with his game, while young players like Caleb Jones were able to step in and look confident.

Viveiros is another disappointing candidate to see leave because I feel he never really had an opportunity to show what he could offer.  Manny Viveiros came to Edmonton after leading the Swift Current Broncos to a 1st place finish as well as the top powerplay in the entire league.  Coming to Edmonton, everyone figured Viveiros would take charge of the powerplay, yet that never seemed to come to fruition and Manny was more often than not simply the extra coach watching the game from up high.

Glen Gulutzan will stay behind the bench as an assistant/associate coach which I suppose is fine.  Last year the Oilers special teams; PP and PK, finished 8th and 30th respectively.  The powerplay looked dominant most of the time while it was major issues in goaltending that resulted in such poor numbers.

The assistant coach positions are an important role in order to give the coach a staff that can work to carry out his vision.  Providing that Tippett has the correct vision in place, whomever he chooses to round out his coaching staff should be effective.  Tippett himself has already stated he wants someone who can work as a skills coach so it will be interesting to see who else he brings on.

Lastly it appears that Jay Woodcroft will stay with the Condors next season.  Woodcroft did a brilliant job with the Condors and helped lead the team to a long playoff run.  Cohesion is crucial at that level and having Jay back behind to bench to continue developing the likes of Yamamoto, Samorukov, Benson, Gambardella, Marody, Jones, Bear, and more is an important job moving forward.