The Edmonton Oilers officially have a new coach at the helm of the, somewhat sinking, ship.
Although Jay Woodcroft was the easiest fall guy in this situation, the blame should be held around the entire Oilers organization. Many were looking at a player trade, or general manager change, before the leading winning percentage coach in franchise history got the axe.
What is even more telling is after yesterday’s press conference with Jeff Jackson and Ken Holland, the dysfunction in the organization remains after the coaching decision.
Most of which lays at the feet of Holland in one of the more awkward press conference moments in Oilers recent memory:
A direct contradiction
During the conference, the two hockey operations leaders were asked if Connor McDavid and the rest of the core members of the team were consulted on the coaching decision. The two men had drastically different answers one after the other:
“I did talk, I have talked over this past with the veterans on our team. I’m not going to tell you what they said. I take the information, ultimately I have to make decisions. Obviously Jeff’s got a long, long, long relationship with [Connor McDavid] you can probably talk about that.”
– Ken Holland
“Yeah, no I mean, we didn’t consult with the players on this decision. Never spoke with [Connor McDavid] or [Leon Draisaitl] or [Ryan Nugent-Hopkins] or [Darnell Nurse] or any of the other leadership group. These guys are here to play hockey that they know that, that’s what they want to do they don’t like being involved in these types of decisions that’s my experience, so that fact that, you know [Kris Knoblauch] was Connor’s coach in Erie in 2014–15 it only has something to do with this because I think Kris Knoblauch is a very good coach. Connor didn’t have anything to do with this decision and neither did the other leadership group.”
– Jeff Jackson
Surely that must have been an awkward behind closed door conversation after the conference ended. Holland tried to play it off like the players supported and had a say in the matter, while Jackson laid the decision solely on their feet.
It’s hard to tell who is right in this situation since they are completely opposite takes, but it’s hard to believe that the players weren’t consulted at all throughout the process. Making a decision without player input would be strange, but having the players dictate who should be coach next would be equally as strange.
All that can be said is you can tell that Holland is at his wits end. Highly rumored to be his last season as GM, it’s almost as if he had limited say in this matter. Going on his third coach in just over four years as GM, Holland surely cannot be given this much more leeway. Jackson looks to be really making his mark on this team with Holland eventually being the next fall guy if things continue this way.
