After starting the season with a 3–9–1 record, the Edmonton Oilers began looking for ways to turn this season around. Even with GM Ken Hollands hands tied to the salary cap, a trade for a goalie almost went through. However there were rumours that either Jack Campbell or the goalie being acquired used their no trade clause to cancel the deal. We are also early into the season and most teams are not ready to make a move until they have a better idea if they can make a run into the playoffs or not.
Bad start resulted in coaching change
With limited options the Oilers then utilized their most common move over the past 13 years and made a coach change. If you can’t change the players then coaching is the next move that could shake things up the most. The poor start also gave new Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson a reason the bring in “his” guy, Kris Knoblauch.
If you ask most fans, a majority of them would have preferred to have Holland fired. Much of blame should fall on him, including poor signings, drafting, and mismanaging the salary cap. Holland is on the last year of his deal and it appears he will not be back regardless. I believe that Jackson is making the management decisions. Firing the GM would also yield the least change in the locker room. When you replace the head coach the team notices it. There’s a new guy to impress and depending on your situation as a player it’s possible to earn more ice time.
Which is how most teams get a new head coach bump and win a few games early on, only to see them regress to the mean. The Oilers new coach bump lasted two games beating .500 clubs in the New York Islanders and Seattle Kraken. The Oilers would then go on to lose three road games in a row, against teams with winning records in the Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, and Carolina Hurricanes.
What Knoblauch has done so far
Coach Knoblauch is trying to implement a fairly straight forward game plan. It’s commonly called five on the dice, 2-1-2 or a box and 1. It’s a zone defence, which the Oilers are good at getting into position, but have not figured how to pick up skaters and adjust. You still have to work hard and defend when playing a zone.
The Oilers also have a bad tendency to cheat for offence. The Islanders lone goal, to take an early lead, was a prime example. Both Connor McDavid and Sam Gagner blew the zone looking for offense on a 50/50 play along the boards and leaving Matthew Barzal wide open at the top of the slot. Prior to that goal, Leon Draisaitl missed an assignment in the slot that led to a grade A chance.
The Oilers were able to recover, play better defence, and win the game with the power play in the third. Coach Knoblauch would evenly distribute the minutes with McDavid and Draisaitl on separate lines the entire game and they each played less than 20 minutes. He even used the fourth line after the Oilers scored their second PP goal to make it a 3–1 lead.
It was reminiscent of when Jay Woodcroft first took over the Oilers and Derek Ryan threw outgoing head coach Dave Tippett under the bus, mentioning that it was nice to have an opportunity to be more involved in the game with more minutes. It appeared a more balanced use of the lineup was going to be the strategy going forward. This is why it was surprising when Knoblauch went nuclear loading up the top line with McDavid and Draisaitl in the second period of the very next game.
It’s just to tempting not to do it but this time it worked and McDavid scores on a breakaway setup by Draisaitl. The Kraken would respond with three goals and take a 3–1 lead into the third. The adjustment made by Knoblauch was to split up McDavid and Draisaitl. Surprisingly that move would also work, with Evander Kane being the benefactor and scoring a goal with less than a minute left to tie it. Then the overtime winner to complete a natural hat trick.
Other noticeable changes
One big change was the lineup to start overtime. Coach Knoblauch would ice Draisaitl, Mattias Ekholm, and Evan Bouchard. During his post game availability, he mentions that if they lose the opening draw they might not get the puck back for a minute, so why have McDavid out there defending? If they win the draw they can sub Ekholm for McDavid. Funny enough it would be Kane, Zach Hyman, and Evan Bouchard on the ice for the winner. At the time it looked like the Oilers could be back and win with a balanced lineup.
Despite the Oilers three-game winning streak coming to an end in Tampa, there was an interesting breakout change I noticed. The Oilers now have a forward at the blueline as an outlet instead all three forwards streaking for offence. The defencemen now have an easy outlet pass if the high risk stretch pass is not there.
The next two games would see the Oilers bad habit of not defending in the slot and poor goaltending cost them the game. Time and time again the Oilers would be in the right place but not playing hard enough defence to prevent a goal.
One subtle change has also been the locker room seating. The defencemen all sit next to each other now, in an attempt to create a pack mentality and better communication. All the moves made by the new coaching have been reasonable but at some point the Oilers have to string together some wins.
It’s possible that no matter how good the coaching is, this roster has regressed. Even with two wins this upcoming American Thanksgiving weekend, they would still be out of a wild card by eight points which historically means they will miss the postseason. The Oilers have 64 games left and they need to start performing better than their current .306% win rate or they’ll be out of it by the new year.
