Not long after the Edmonton Oilers were eliminated in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2021, they decided to make a major shift in leadership behind the bench.
General manager Stan Bowman, who has been catching plenty of heat from Oilers fans for some of his personnel moves, terminated head coach Kris Knoblauch as well as assistant coach Mark Stuart. This means that whoever ultimately takes over behind the Edmonton bench for next season will be the sixth head coach in the NHL career of 2015 first overall draft selection Connor McDavid.
But was it the right move for the Oilers to move on from the coach who led them to two straight appearances in the Stanley Cup Final? Not in the mind of Steve Simmons of The Toronto Sun.
Steve Simmons Blasts The Edmonton Oilers For Firing Kris Knoblauch While Stan Bowman Keeps His Job
Simmons, who was the journalist who infamously confronted Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment Keith Pelley over the controversial hiring of John Chayka as their general manager, blasted Oilers GM Stan Bowman for making a coaching change of an individual who had previously led the club to two straight berths in the Stanley Cup Final while not having to pay a price himself for his questionable personnel moves.
“Kris Knoblauch was hired to coach the Oilers after they had bottomed out mid-season three years ago,” Simmons wrote. “He took them, in his first season, to within a goal of the Stanley Cup. In his second year, they went back to the Stanley Cup final. You can’t do much better than that. Over the past two years, general manager Stan Bowman got snookered on a free-agency signing deal by the St. Louis Blues, failed to pick up a goaltender of consequence, signed some bad contracts, and lessened his roster exponentially. So, the coach who took them from nowhere to somewhere got shown the door and the GM who took them from somewhere to nowhere remains in charge.”
It’s clear that the opinionated Simmons doesn’t like how Knoblauch has to seemingly pay the price for what he believes were incompetent moves from Bowman.
The Oilers Fired Kris Knoblauch Earlier This Month
The Oilers, who struggled with consistency during the regular season, were defeated by the Ducks in the Western Conference Semifinal, marking the first time since 2021 against the Winnipeg Jets that they didn’t advance to round two.
Bowman, who made the call to dismiss Knoblauch and Stuart, explained that he feels the club needs a new voice in leadership moving forward.
“It was a year we never were able to get going. It wasn’t just a slow start or maybe a tough stretch in the middle of the year. Those things happen to all teams; you have some ups and downs, but we didn’t have a lot of ups this year,” Bowman said on Thursday.
“So when we performed our analysis and our review about where we headed as a team, we just felt that we needed a different voice to lead us to where we want to get to.”
NHL Insider Blasts Oilers For Coaching Change, Defends Kris Knoblauch