Oilers Fire Head Coach Jay Woodcroft

by | Nov 12, 2023 | News, NHL, Soapbox | 10 comments

EDMONTON JOURNAL: The Oilers have fired head coach Jay Woodcroft and defense coach Dave Manson.

Woodcroft is being replaced by Kris Knoblauch and will be joined by assistant coach Paul Coffey.

Former Edmonton Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft (NHL.com).

Knoblauch joins the Oilers from the AHL’s Hartford Wolfpack, the farm team of the New York Rangers. He also coached Oilers captain Connor McDavid when the two were with the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League.

SPECTOR’S NOTE: Hired by the Oilers in February 2022, Woodcroft coached them to the Western Conference Final that year. He guided them to a 109-point campaign in 2022-23, marking the fifth-best regular-season performance in franchise history.

Despite being upset by the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round of the 2023 playoffs, the Oilers began this season considered a Stanley Cup contender. Instead, they’ve lurched to a 3-9-1 start that threatens to derail their season.

One would’ve thought the Oilers would’ve replaced Woodcroft with Knoblauch on Thursday following their loss to the bottom-feeding San Jose Sharks. Instead, it comes after they snapped a four-game losing streak with a 4-1 win last night over the Seattle Kraken.

Knoblauch’s connection to McDavid is fueling speculation that the Oilers captain had a hand in deciding Woodcroft’s replacement. It’ll be interesting to see how he addresses their porous goaltending, shaky defense and a popgun offense, especially if McDavid remains hampered by an upper-body injury that sidelined him for two games last month.

For those keeping score, Knoblauch becomes the Oilers’ eighth head coach since 2013. As per Hockey-Reference.com, the others were Ralph Krueger (2013), Dallas Eakins (2014 to 2015), Todd Nelson (2015), Todd McLellan (2016 to 2019), Ken Hitchcock (2019), Dave Tippett (2020 to 2022) and Woodcroft.







10 Comments

  1. williew, a week ago when this possibility arose, as reported by Lyle, you posted “Oil are Not changing there Coach…100% he is very good and the players and Fans really like him…”

    Just goes to show that “popularity” carries little weight when it comes to results – or a lack thereof. There’s still hope, then, here in Ottawa that Smith & his staff will be looking for new jobs if the one step forward – two steps back routine continues in Sweden where they’ll be playing a tough Detroit team and Minnesota.

    • Good Morning George,

      I can tell you this move by Ken Holland its Not gone over well in Edmonton with the Fan base at all.❗️

      Holland was getting lots of flack big time from the fans on Social Media and on the local Edmonton Radio Stations, I have lost all respect after this BS move.

      This is Hollands 4th Coach in 5 years in Edmonton.
      High Time to Look in the Mirior Ken Holland your the Big Problem Hear in Edmonton ……
      Get Ready for the
      ( Fire Holland Chat at Rogers Place )

      Lets look at Holland achievements over the past 12-14 months
      1/
      The Bigest problem in Edmonton 2022/23 season was the Defence last year and in the playoffs.
      Nurse & Ceci are an oil & water Defencive duo…
      they should have moved RD Ceci…
      and they signed Nurse for way to much @$9.25M
      Nurse is a $5.M to $6.M d/man tops….
      2/
      Jack Campbell experement has failed, 3.5 years left at $5.M.
      Hopfully he can get some of his game back and the oilers can Trade him at the 2024 deadline asfter his stints in the AHL…?
      Skinner is the #1 in Edmonton now, he is starting to Roll & hopfully go on a winning streak now
      3/
      Connor Brown
      Signed him to a $4.M contract, $775,000 base and $3.25M Bounus after 10 games played that just Brutal🙈
      Brown has Zero Points in 9 games❗️ & now he is out Hurt, Hopfully we dont play him a 10th game and we leave him in the minors and Save the $3.25M for next season if not our cap gos down by that amount for the 2024/25 season…🙈

      I feel sorry for the New Coach..Kris Knoblauch..
      and Paul Coffey..?

      The Oilers need to let Holland GO before he dose More Damage to the Oilers…..🤔✅

  2. Wow! EIGHT coaches in 10 seasons!

    I don’t know who the next 3 or 4 teams are in terms of coaching changes, but you have to wonder how much of that is attributed to icing a roster that sports upwards of 50% and up of their cap on 6 players.

    • It’s seems the consensus around here is that cap space or maybe better allocation of cap space is what wins championships. However, when looking at teams that have won, that isn’t the case so I don’t know why that point is always brought up.

      Maybe some people believe equally distributing the cap throughout the lineup will produce a better team, but there’s been no evidence of that so far, especially if you consider a team like the senators who have done a fairly good job of allocating cap space yet failed to make the postseason while doing so.

      The cap sucks!

      • Well, I would wager that each of the last 3 cup winners – Vegas, Colorado and Tampa Bay – spent less on their top 6 payouts, percentage-wise (in the neighborhood of 3% to 5%) than do some teams either experiencing shaky starts to the season or those who can’t advance beyond one or 2 series in recent years in the playoffs.

        On the surface that might not seem like much at a quick glance, but it totals $2,505,000, $3,340,000, $4,175,000 – representing potentially significantly better players than those either costing $1 mil and lower or those whose “contributions” don’t match their costly cap hits.

      • Well, I would wager that each of the last 3 cup winners – Vegas, Colorado and Tampa Bay – spent less on their top 6 payouts, percentage-wise (in the neighborhood of 3% to 5%) than do some teams either experiencing shaky starts to the season or those who can’t advance beyond one or 2 series in recent years in the playoffs.

        On the surface that might not seem like much at a quick glance, but it totals $2,505,000, $3,340,000, $4,175,000 – representing potentially significantly better players than those either costing $1 mil and lower or those whose “contributions” don’t match their costly cap hits.

        You can’t tell me, for example, that the Leafs could not have do

      • hiccup after hiccup here …. the Pengy thing is catching?

        “could not have done better with $5.5 mil than tossing it away on two liabilities like Klingberg and Reaves.

  3. 5 coaches for 1 GM must be some kinda record?!

  4. The wrong people were fired. The Oilers problem is an overpaid GM who assembled a team with AHL-level defensemen and overpaid ECHL-level goalies. Holland was one of the top 5 GMs in the league……before the salary cap era.