The 2025-26 NHL regular season is officially on pause for the Edmonton Oilers and the rest of the league. The break is of course for the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics but it will provide the Oilers with a much needed break in what is quickly becoming a slump.
The Oilers entered the three-week break off back-to-back games, losing both to officially put them on a three-game losing streak, directly following their previous three-game winning streak. For now, the Oilers sit second in the Pacific Division but their hold on a playoff spot is slipping.
Of course, there is plenty of blame to go around but since the Oilers have made a number of changes to their forward lines, have completely switched out their goaltending tandem, the attention seems to have turned to their defence. Specifically by way of the men behind the bench. Further exacerbated by star Leon Draisaitl and his postgame remarks on Wednesday. Fans want blood, they want to see Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch fired but according to an Oilers insider, they may have to hold off for now.
Many fans and media alike are wanting the Oilers to bring back former assistant, Paul Coffey.
Oilers making changes behind their bench
Bob Stauffer spoke on his show Oilers Now, dropping hints and focusing a lot on the topic on everybody's mind the coaching and the defence. Specifically, Stauffer points out that the Oilers went down from four coaches behind the bench last season now to three.
The fact that has caused some speculation as well, is that Stauffer mentioned Paul Coffey by name, talking about his "unique personality" and mentioned current assistant, Mark Stuart. Stuart is in charge of both the penalty kill and defence, both of which have been abysmal this season. Multiple players have seen their defensive statistics plummet since Stuart took over for Coffey and the team as a whole ranks amongst the worst in the league in terms of expected goals against.
All of these combined with Stauffer's words have caused speculation that the Oilers may be bringing back Coffey to go behind the bench.
This would be a welcomed change given the Oiler struggles to suppress quality chances against and to keep the puck out of the net. Oilers general manager Stan Bowman has already overhauled their goaltending and has moved around the forward lines, focusing on the defence seems like the next logical step.
The club will have three weeks to sort this out and hopefully turn their season around after the break.