News and notes on the Oilers: Woodcroft out, Knoblauch in
The Edmonton Oilers have made a lot of changes as of late, but is the team going to be better or worse. Also what else is going on in the organisation?
The Oilers finally at long last snapped their losing streak against Seattle on Saturday, but it was too little too late for head coach Jay Woodcroft who was immediately axed the day after the win.
I find this rather peculiar timing. You’d think a win would buy the head coach some goodwill with management and he’d keep his job and see how far he could take the squad, especially considering Woodcroft has been there, done that and coached the team out of losing streaks before.
In my opinion this was blatantly unfair to Woodcroft, and judging by the vitriol against the club on X, I’m not the only one.
It appears this was not an overnight decision as the Oilers immediately had a replacement in place, with Kris Knoblauch.
Knoblauch has come to light as the guy who was head coach for Connor McDavid on the Erie Otters at one time. After McDavid departed for the Oilers post-draft in 2015, he coached the Otters to the OHL championship in 2017. He then departed for Philadelphia to be an assistant coach there for two seasons, followed by his most recent stint as the head coach of the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack, the farm team of the New York Rangers, where his teams were essentially so-so.
While there’s nothing we can do now about Woodcroft anymore, let’s see what Knoblauch will bring to the table. As per the Edmonton Journal, the key quote is right here:
“He teaches a culture of winning and speed and puck movement, but he empowers all the kids.”
New CEO Jeff Jackson had this in mind from the start and his fingerprints are all over this move. I’m listening to the press conference as I write this and according to Ken Holland this was a joint decision between him and Jackson, but let’s just cut the BS and be honest – this is about Jackson bringing in anyone associated with McDavid to make him sign his last contract here and keep him happy. That’s not altogether a bad idea, but it is a bit unorthodox. As long as the guys perform then it’ll be fine, but let’s be honest – we’ve seen an element of nepotism in previous hires and it didn’t work out well for the club.
I think there’s an implication in that quote that Woodcroft wasn’t giving the young guys enough opportunity, which in my opinion is blatantly false. Woodcroft of late was playing Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway higher in the lineup, and Philip Broberg before being sent down, had a game on the second pairing which didn’t work out at the time.
James Hamblin right now looks like a bubble player at best so he’s not worth playing higher up in the lineup, and Raphael Lavoie is on his first call-up so naturally you don’t want to throw too much at him too fast – make sure he can handle the competition on the fourth line and then move him up as his play dictates.
The really strange part of this though is that the Oilers also fired Dave Manson and have replaced him with Paul Coffey, a guy who was a great player but only has coaching experience in the OJHL and that’s it – and it was as an assistant coach at that.
I get that Manson was in charge of the defence corps so you point the finger at him when they’re struggling, but the forward corps has been struggling as well, not just the defence. Yet neither Mark Stuart nor Glen Gulutzan got the axe. Gulutzan especially, as the power play set an NHL record just last season but has struggled this season as has the rest of the team. I’m curious as to why the defence corps coach was targeted, it’s very strange to me.
Coffey is an odd choice for a replacement to me. Not just because he has next to no coaching experience and not just because he’s a dynasty-era player, but because he was nothing more than an advisor to the owner and chairman, giving opinions to management on the direction of the franchise.
What qualifies him to be an NHL assistant coach at this point other than “he was a good player” which is no guarantee of anything? This is one of the strangest replacements I’ve ever seen in the history of the franchise. I really hope this is only on an interim, basis but there’s no confirmation from the team on that.
Didn’t Jackson learn what happened to Wayne Gretzky when he coached the Phoenix Coyotes? Just because you were a superstar player in the NHL, doesn’t mean you’ll be a superstar coach in the NHL. This just reeks of the same failure to me, but of course, I could be off base on this – my feeling is otherwise, though.
Woodcroft leaves the franchise with the best points percentage of any coach in franchise history, at .643 – yes, even more than Glen Sather, who was .616.
Potential goalie trades for the Oilers
Rumor has it that the Edmonton Oilers are interested in Jordan Binnington from the St. Louis Blues. They’ve also inquired with Nashville on Jusse Saros and with Montreal on Jake Allen. These rumors make sense from an Oilers’ perspective, as goaltender is an area they need to improve on.
Jack Campbell will have to go the other way in any trade made for either of these players, as they’re all making about the same amount of money. Allen is the cheapest at $3.85 million but he’s also the oldest at 33, which means he’s hardly the ideal candidate for the long term.
I have a feeling the Oilers will go hard after Carter Hart from the Philadelphia Flyers in the offseason. Hart is from Sherwood Park so the Oilers are his hometown team, and he’s a great goalie playing on a lousy rebuilding team in Philly.
I would radically suggest that whether Campbell continues to struggle or not he’s a much better fit in Philly than Hart at this point in time, as a rebuilding team wants to lose and right now Campbell will help a bad Flyers team lose.
Look at how badly John Gibson has been cooked playing in front of a rebuilding team in Anaheim, they pretty much ruined him. The Flyers will do the same thing with Hart if they don’t move him. If Campbell is traded to Philadelphia since they’re rebuilding anyway, the team wins whether Campbell succeeds or fails there. Failure from the goalie will result in a higher draft pick, which is what they want. Success gives them an excuse to unload Campbell for more draft ammo at the next draft.
The cost on top of Campbell would likely be quite high so I think these rumors are just that – rumors. A trade in net is likely a deadline or offseason move for the Oilers.
Want your voice heard? Join the Oil On Whyte team!
In the meantime
The goaltending has struggled this season in Edmonton, both Stuart Skinner and Campbell alike, along with all the skaters. Campbell is the bigger cost ticket, though, and you know no one was taking on that contract so he was waived and unsurprisingly cleared waivers to go down to Bakersfield and work on his game.
The struggles of the goalies are no surprise to me right now as the skaters have hung them out to dry way too often, which is why I blame the skaters much more than the goalies.
Where the goalies own their performance is that neither Skinner nor Campbell have stolen a game for the Oilers so far this season, something that is key to a team having success in both the regular season and the playoffs from time to time.
Campbell is now in Bakersfield and he’s continuing his struggles there, putting up a 4.00 GAA and a .826 save percentage in two games with the Condors so far. No good, but of course an early sample size. My understanding is goaltending consultant Sylvain Rodrigue (yup, Olivier’s dad) is based in Bakersfield so let’s hope that he can fix whatever is wrong with Campbell, because the Oilers have a year to go on James Neal’s buyout and if they have to add another buyout cap hit to the situation that’s no good for anyone.
Sam Gagner, the hero of yesteryear who took the long way back up
You gotta love the fight in Sam Gagner even at 34, he just never quits, ever. He came up to the Oilers on a PTO and with lingering effects from last season’s injury could only practice with the team, but this was enough for the club to sign him to an AHL contract.
This was largely due to financial reasons, as the Oilers were up against the cap and couldn’t afford the NHL contract for him. Then Gagner went and pumped out five points (one goal and four assists) in three games with the Condors and with the Oilers struggling, they had no choice but to upgrade that to a two-way pact. They then put Adam Erne on waivers – who, let’s face it, was rather invisible on the ice anyway – to be sent down to Bakersfield and up came Gagner, and he’s stayed ever since.
He then scored two goals in a losing effort in his third Oilers debut and got some time in the top six. He’s back down to the third line after not following that up with anything else, but you have to love the incremental steps he’s taken to get back to the top.
And the rest…..
Broberg has also since been sent back down to Bakersfield as the Oilers needed cap space and he is still on a two-way contract for this season and seemed to be struggling more than most.
Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark got injured and since the Oilers were already playing two men short, at that point they got the NHL’s green light to use some emergency recalls, with Hamblin for the second time and Lavoie for the first time. Both are currently playing on the fourth line and expected to go back down to Bakersfield by next week, as Brown and Janmark are both nearing a return to health.
Brown has played nine games this season, so his $3.25 million bonus for 10 games played will kick in with his next start.
Former Oiler news
Zack Kassian was not offered a contract by Anaheim after the regular season when his PTO was done, so he has officially retired. Kassian retires with 913 PIMs, the ninth most in the NHL during his career which spanned from 2011-2022.
I can’t find current information on what Kassian’s net worth is now but with career earnings of just over $13.5 million, it’s safe to say he should be fine assuming he hasn’t sunk it into a self-destructive habit of some sort.
We’ll see what’s next for him after this.
Next. One win for the Oilers means nothing. dark
PDO report
Although this doesn’t let the players off the hook, if you scroll down a little on the Edmonton Journal article previously linked, you can see that the Oilers are currently suffering through their worst PDO in five seasons, so this is certainly contributing to the lousy start. Every time they have a PDO under the mean they have a losing record, which to me is no surprise.
From the sounds of Knoblauch’s press conference, he has no intention of changing the Oilers’ team D structure from the zone that Woodcroft instilled prior to his firing. It sounds like he’s going to help the team tweak it and put less emphasis on attacking – which the Oilers love to do right now (and who can blame them with the firepower they have at their disposal?) – and more emphasis on defending to create the odd man rushes and more chances that the successful teams practice these days.
Let’s hope this is something that will improve the Oiler’s PDO and bring them back to a winning record.