Behind the Bench: Edmonton Oilers

The Oilers had Todd McLellan as coach for 3 and a half years during 2015 to 2018 and his tenure can be summed up in a boring way because he was generally considered mildly successful. He came in right when Connor McDavid was drafted so McLellan was tasked with bringing this team from a no-experience young team into a playoff contender for years to come. You can definitely argue he made us take that next step specifically in 2017 getting us to the playoffs where we actually beat a veteran San Jose Sharks team in the first round and also took a tough Anaheim Ducks team to the brink of elimination. McLellan was eventually fired in 2019 for “levels of flatness, and levels of non-response.” General Manager at the time Peter Chiarelli decided McLellan would be fired after a slow start that included the Oilers starting 9-10-1 in 2018.

The tenure of Ken Hitchcock was temporary and it was always going to be temporary. He was 66 years old when he came in and was primarily seen as a gap coach to come in after McLellan’s firing. One thing of note when it comes to Hitchcock was that he started incredibly well for the Oilers with a 8-2-1 record in his first 11 games but wasn’t able to keep that up with the team eventually ending the season at a disappointing 26-28-8 record on the year.

I think Dave Tippett was shafted a little bit in the sense that he didn’t have a whole lot to work with despite having Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on his team. Alex Chiasson was one of his best players and while Chiasson was never considered bad at hockey, when he’s one of your top players that should be a problem. There were 2 mistakes that led to Dave Tippett’s Oilers downfall and one of them involves the previous 2nd line of the Edmonton Oilers. The 2nd line of the Edmonton Oilers in 2020 was Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl, and Kailer Yamamoto and they were hands down the best line in the league at the time. So what do you do when the playoffs start with that line? Well according to Dave Tippett you separate them for some reason. By far one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen and arguably led to the Oilers being first rounded that year. The second mistake isn’t entirely Tippett’s fault and could even be argued that it was Ken Holland’s fault, the General Manager at the time. The Oilers had the best AHL first line at the time involving Tyler Benson, Cooper Marody and Joe Gambardella who all individually got chances with the Oilers, but never together. While that makes sense in theory, the Oilers at the time had such a massive depth problem we were signing random forwards from Sweden to try them out because we had such terrible players in our bottom six. So why wouldn’t you just play the top AHL line… together in the NHL? It was such an obvious move that people never understood why it never happened.

Jay Woodcroft was awesome, having maybe the most iconic Oilers coach moment in history after beating the Calgary Flames in the playoffs waiting for a handshake in the most smug fashion possible. Initially the Bakersfield Condors head coach, he was brought up after firing Dave Tippett and Woodcroft had success like no other Oilers coach had. He played all 4 lines, had them playing great defense and everyone was playing to the potential of a top team in the NHL. Until one day it just kinda stopped? No one can know why this happened or if anything even did happen but one day, Jay Woodcroft became entirely reliant on Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl playing on the same line. You would see a team that formerly came together as a unit slowly start to descend into a 2 man roster where Connor and Leon would play 20+ minutes a night as forwards. After clearly losing the locker room in late 2023, he was promptly fired and a short but confusing era of Jay Woodcroft ended.

The current coach of the Edmonton Oilers and probably the best in terms of results. Leading the Oilers to two Stanley Cup Finals and arguably being the head coach for the greatest powerplay ever established in the history of the NHL (even if Glen Gulutzan was clearly responsible for that). Where Jay Woodcroft succeeded in making a team become a cohesive unit, Knoblauch leaned into the opposite where he would rely on Connor and Leon to really take over games fully aware of what he was doing. It was a pure offensive style of hockey that relied on 2 players encapsulating the saying of “live by x, die by x.” While things aren’t looking too good for Knoblauch in the current day, he will no doubt go down as one of the better head coaches the Edmonton Oilers ever had.

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