The head coach of Edomonton has compared a recent signing to an all-time great, which is problematic.

The head coach of Edomonton has compared a recent signing to an all-time great, which is problematic.

Once Jay Woodcroft’s two-year tenure as an Edmonton Oilers head coach came to an end, the team did what it always does when it finds itself shorthanded on players and goes into neutral: it fired the man in the dugout.

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By mid-November, the 31st-place Oilers looked certain to blow their season, so management provided yet another justification for this group, sacking defensive coaches Dave Manson and Woodcroft and adding junior coach Kris Knoblauch, a former Oiler, and Connor McDavid.

The Edmonton Oilers On Wednesday, February 21, 2024, in Edmonton, during second period NHL action, Sam Gagner (89) is struck by Jake DeBrusk (74) of the Boston Bruins. Greg Southam of Postmedia

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Once more, the coach is held responsible for the team’s lack of success.

At the hurriedly scheduled news conference on Sunday, general manager Ken Holland stated, “That’s why I said it’s a difficult decision.” “With Jay, we had the second-best winning percentage over the previous 120 games, but we’re focused on winning right now. Now is the moment to give it your all.

“You can debate whether 12 or 13 games are enough, but I believe it’s probably too late if you wait another 10 games and nothing changes. Thus, Jeff Jackson, the CEO of hockey operations, and I believed that action was necessary.

With this, there have been 11 different head coaches in the previous 16 seasons. The current leadership group, which consists of Todd McLellan (266 games), Ken Hitchcock (62 games), Dave Tippett (161 games), and Woodcroft (133 games), has had five coaches in eight years and thirteen games.

I’m hard-pressed to come up with a more scathing indictment of a dressing room and an organization.

It also raises the question of how one does not examine the core of this hockey team in great detail. Given their skill, background, and everything they have on the line this season, it is a problem that needs to be addressed if it takes another coaching change to inspire them.

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Holland declared, “I believe in the core.” Over the past two years, no one has participated in more than five playoff rounds. We made it to the final four and eight times, and we finished in the top five or six spots in the league in terms of points the previous year.

“We just felt like a change was needed to get our season going. It’s not essential, in my opinion. For the past two years, the core has done it. We had had enough of waiting around.

The one thing nearly everyone can agree on, in the wake of Sunday’s bloodletting and as the Oilers languish at the bottom of the league in their all-too-familiar state of turmoil, is that it’s not coaching.

In his brief tenure here, Woodcroft went 79-41-13, the sixth-best record in the league during that time. In his first playoff season, he finished 26-9-3 and advanced three rounds; in his second season, he finished 50-23-9 and advanced two rounds. Every time, it was the eventual Stanley Cup champions who eliminated them.

His terrible shortcoming, though, is that he failed to take a firm enough stance against a team that has never taken defensive and puck management duties seriously. This season, the team’s defense—not just in goal—took a serious hit, and he was unable to turn it around.

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Although it can be risky to play the bad cop and offend a leadership group these days, there was no need to snap the team to attention when it was needed.

He is to blame for that.

However, more of the blame lies with a blah dressing room and a blah management team. A big portion of the issue is that Holland gave this team terrible goaltending.

Edmonton’s.864 save percentage is the lowest in the league. Nothing else is going to change until that does. It remains to be seen if action is to be taken or if fingers are to be crossed in the hopes that Stuart Skinner recovers greatly.

They are also hindered by having a roster that is so constrained by the salary cap that they are forced to play with two players less than full strength the entire season, which makes it very difficult to weather injuries or bench players to send messages. While all organizations are operating close to capacity, not all of them are engulfed in the largest choke job in franchise history.

It is absurd to suggest that coaching is the issue when no Edmonton Oilers coach since Craig MacTavish in 2009 has lasted longer than three and a half seasons.