Kris Knoblauch has been relieved of his duties as Edmonton Oilers coach. He was sacked late last night.
The Oilers moved on from Knoblauch after just 233 regular-season games. He had coached the team to the Stanley Cup Final in two of his three seasons behind Edmonton’s bench.
Another Coach Gone in Edmonton
The next coach will be the tenth for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the longest-serving Oiler. Nugent-Hopkins’ next game will be his 1,032nd regular-season game.
A coach in Northern Alberta seemingly gets 100-games-and-change. That number is skewed somewhat by temp gigs handed to Todd Nelson and Ken Hitchcock over the years.
This time was particularly unseemly, as team president Jeff Jackson and general manager Stan Bowman were caught approaching Vegas for permission to speak with Bruce Cassidy before firing Knoblauch. Bowman left Knoblauch twisting in the wind for a few days before informing him of the move.
No Loyalty in the Coaching World
Win one Cup for Vegas, as Cassidy did, and the Golden Knights fire you with eight games left in a season. Then they try to control where your career path takes you. Coach the Oilers to a pair of Stanley Cups, like Knoblauch, and they don’t even have the decency to look you in the eye before calling around behind your back.
There is no loyalty in sports. There is less in the coaching world.
Focus on the Coach
Here in Edmonton, where two productive, award-winning, Hall-of-Famers-to-be front the lineup, it’s never about the players. Sure, the GM tweaks the roster and takes care of the signings. But in Edmonton, when there is trouble, it lands at the feet of the coach or the goalie.
It’s low-hanging fruit. And sometimes Darnell Nurse takes a turn.
Increasingly, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have fed the culture. “They were able to stay on top of us all over the place and we were never really able to generate any momentum up the ice,” McDavid said in the frustrating moments after a Game 6 loss.