There’s been a volcanic eruption of rumours around the future of Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch but will the Oilers pull the trigger and bring in a new coach?
I suspect that’s going to happen, and, as much as I hate to say this, I see few other obvious paths for the Oilers to improve other than bringing in a new coach to see if he can finally institute the defensive systems and defensive excellence the Oilers now desperately need to compete for a Stanley Cup.
Excellent new goalies, defencemen and forwards are difficult to obtain in the NHL, but there are good coaches on the market, and the team took a major step back this past season in terms of defending.
Before I dig into my reasoning for a coaching change, it’s worth noting the hockey media is divided on whether or not the Oilers should make a move, even as it sounds like something is cooking here. The ball got rolling in GM Stan Bowman’s end-of-season press conference when he said no job was safe, including his own job and the jobs of the coaching staff. Everyone was to be evaluated, which is now happening.
This past week, NHL insider Frank Seravalli got the pot boiling furiously when he went on Sportsnet 590 in Toronto and said, “I do think significant changes are coming in Edmonton… I think, one, I think a coaching change is likely. I think it’s more likely than not that Kris Knoblauch and his staff are sent packing. I think there’s likely to be front office changes coming in Edmonton as they reshape and restructure. And I really wonder in terms of how they go about rejigging this roster, what happens next? Do they find a way to convince a team, sweeten a package with a team, to move on from Darnell Nurse? I think that’s needed. I think they’ve got to, it’s almost like a little bit of addition by subtraction. You can’t have a player taking up that much space on your cap and not producing at a level that is commensurate for your team. And so I think that’s on top of going out and getting a goalie… I think the totality of it, and what we’re going to see for the most consequential offseason, maybe in Edmonton Oilers history on tap, is worth watching.”
Knoblauch comes across as a thoroughly decent man, an astute coach and calm and positive leader. He also took the Oilers to two straight Stanley Cup Finals, with hopes high this year until a streak of injuries made it impossible for Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman to play their best games in the playoffs.
All this has some people still supporting the Oilers coach.
The Journal’s Jim Matheson is in the “Keep Knoblauch” camp. Said Matheson on social media: “Since 2009, Oilers have had 10 head coaches…Quinn, Renney, Krueger, Eakins, Nelson, McLellan, Hitchcock, Tippett, Woodcroft and Knoblauch. Only McLellan (264) and Knoblauch (233) have lasted longer than 200 games. Maybe it is not just the coach at fault here…With hockey fans easiest culprit is always the coach. Let’s get a new one. He’ll be better than the one we’ve got. Not saying all NHL coaches are top-drawer but the average life-span of an NHL coach is 2.3 years, lowest of all 4 major sports… If Knoblauch is replaced as Oiler coach this is the owner saying something has to change because the GM Bowman can’t in all honesty say he is free of blame. He has made mistakes and so has president Jackson. And while we’re at it, players need to be held accountable too… Frankly I am tired of fans who let players skate on their accountability when things go bad. Yes, there are coaches who make wrong lineup decisions or tactics but the Oiler players are hardly absolved of blame because they can’t or won’t play defence.”
On Oilers Now, team insider Bob Stauffer has said he expects change in the coaching staff, which met with agreement from TSN’s Ryan Rishaug this week, who told Stauffer: “You can’t return the coaching staff the same as it is. And, I mean, no disrespect to any of those guys.”
It’s not clear if Paul Coffey will be back, but other changes in coaching are needed as well, Rishaug said.
“You got to make some sort of change. You got to make some upgrades, make some tweaks, get some new voices in there. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Kris Knoblauch… I just wonder about the coaching position, because if we continue that exercise, how do they get better? Right? The answer is there doesn’t seem to be a clear path to immediate improvement. And so in lieu of an obvious answer, that (coaching) is something you can do in a situation that requires some sort of change.”
Said Stauffer: “They might have to make a hard decision.”
coaching
My take
1. Knoblauch is a good-to-great coach, but in his nearly three years in Edmonton, he’s struggled to get his team to consistently play championship defence. You could say that any coach would struggle with that chore, given that Edmonton’s top players have yet to be defence-first fanatics, but the fact is that Edmonton struggled to defend two years in a row in the Stanley Cup Final against Florida, then struggled for almost the entire 2025-26 season and playoffs, giving up far more Grade A shots and goals against than in previous seasons.
For all his many strengths as a coach, Knoblauch was unable to convince this team to play solid fundamental defence most of this year.
No lead was safe when the Oilers had it.
No Edmonton goalie could count on consistent defensive play from Edmonton’s position players.
And, in the playoffs, Anaheim’s attackers had their way with the Oilers.
2. Many years ago, the NHL’s greatest coach Scotty Bowman told his goalie Ken Dryden on the Montreal Canadiens that the most important job of the coach is to get the right players on the ice.
That still holds, and despite a handful of iffy decisions, Knoblauch has done a reasonable job in this regard. But Scotty Bowman made that comment back when his Canadiens had overwhelming talent. The variation between the worst players in the NHL and the best players in the NHL was much larger then that it is now. And Bowman’s Montreal teams had many of the best players and not any below average ones.
In today’s NHL, where teams can’t hold on to all of its own talented players due to salary cap constraints, where parity is king, and where the the variation between the worst and the best players in the league is much smaller, and the variation between the best and worst teams isn’t so great as in the past, the coach still must get the right players on the ice, the right combos in the right moments. But he’s also got to find the right system and tactics and get his players to fully buy in and excel when it comes to execution.
With so little difference between the players and teams, coaching becomes that much more important.
Knoblauch obviously had some success at getting defensive buy-in, but it was missing most of last season. The team trended down. Maybe it was the fatigue of many long playoff runs. Maybe it was injury and age catching up. Maybe weak to inconsistent goaltending took the stuffing out of the team. Maybe some poor player personnel moves by management depleted the roster. But part of the problem was the coach simply could not get the players to bear down on defence and defend well enough that the Oilers could win despite so many other things going wrong.
3. It is possible that Knoblauch will have a more receptive audience next year and that he’ll find a way to get through to every single player about the need to play sound, fierce and fundamental defence game in and game out, all year long.
But I also think that a new coach might be able to better lay down the law. And there are some good ones out there, coaches with proven track records at pushing teams to defend hard and well. Former Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy tops this list.
4. If Cassidy is interested in coming to Edmonton, the question comes down to: Which coach is more likely to successfully get the Oilers to buy in and play championship defence, Knoblauch or Cassidy?
I give Cassidy the edge because he’s done it before in Vegas. His Boston teams, though they never won a Cup, were also known for their fierce defending.
5. Of course, in saying this, I don’t know what I don’t know, such as what Edmonton’s players and Bowman himself think of Knoblauch. Maybe the players blame themselves more than Knoblauch for the team’s defensive struggles. Maybe Bowman thinks he made some bad calls that handcuffed the coach. Maybe they think the coach isn’t the problem, that it’s more on them.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s shared responsibility and most everyone is to blame to some extent. But you can’t change out all the players, nor would you want to do so, as hard as Bowman shuffled that deck this past year.
But you can change the coach.
And there are sensible reasons to do it, so I think it will happen and that it should happen.
6. Finally, in making predictions, as the late great Scott Adams used to say, it’s always wise to follow the money. The Oilers are ultimately in the business of selling tickets. To sell tickets, to get folks to renew on their big dollar packages, Edmonton needs action.
I’ve rarely seen a time in the past decade with so little interest in the Oilers as these past few weeks after Edmonton’s playoff loss. I suspect that can’t be good for sales.
The Oilers have got to do something to change the narrative and renew hope.
And I bet they will.
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