We’re only two games into Round 1 of the 2026 playoffs, and unfortunately, there is already a lot to discuss when it comes to the Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers had a fantastic comeback win in Game 1. They sqandered a 2–0 lead, but found their way back to a 4–3 victory. Game 2 told a different story, even though the Oilers scored first. The end of the game found Edmonton down 6–4, and the game did not leave much positivity with fans. I can only imagine how the team felt.
While there are many things at work that are plaguing the Oilers, like a potential injury to McDavid, disastrous special teams, or a scoreless McDavid, we are going to look into a potential issue that has been a point of contention for most of the regular season as well:
Head Coach Kris Knoblauch.
Pointed comments from team leadership
The Oilers have gone through too many coaches in the past several years. Still, sometimes changes have to be made in order to give the players a new perspective, or sometimes leadership is moved out to kickstart the team. There have been several comments made by the superstars, like Draisaitl’s pointed words following a loss to the Calgary Flames on February 4.
“We’re not consistent enough. This league is too hard to lollygag through games and trying to get winning streaks going. You need everybody. It starts with coaches. Everybody,”
This was followed by Connor McDavid admiring how well coached the Tampa Bay Lightning have been this season on March 21 after a tough loss to Cooper’s team.
“It starts with the coaches,” he said. “Everybody. You’re never going to win if you have four or five guys going, and it starts at the top. Our leaders can be better.”
“They’re extremely well-coached, they’re extremely well-organized. They’re very rehearsed in everything they do. It’s very impressive. And when you do break them down, they have a heck of a goalie to backstop them.”
Where has coaching gone wrong this season?
Most people would be able to count on one hand when they have seen Knoblauch lose his temper. This should be a good thing. However, sometimes Knoblauch’s cool head behind the bench has come across as disinterest, especially when questionable changes are made to the Oilers lines midgame, or potentially the worse option, no changes are made at all.
Knoblauch has a history of throwing offensive lines in the blender when the Oilers are chasing a game. He pairs McDavid and Draisaitl together to try to force life into the team. It has become predictable, and worse yet, manageable. Draisaitl and McDavid create magic on the ice most of the time. However, pairing them together leaves holes further down the lineup, which is why it is best to have them skate together on the power play instead of 5v5. But the past two seasons, especially this tumultuous season, has seen the two superstar forwards playing together far too often when the team is on the losing end of the ice.
Knoblauch has two of the most talented players that the NHL has seen in possibly decades on his roster. Much of the criticism that comes his way is the way that he tends to rely on them far too often, squandering their full potential.
Focusing on the playoffs
Normally, two games wouldn’t be enough data to point out what’s going wrong on a team, but the playoffs are a different beast. Teams and leadership only have a few games to figure out what to change in order to outperform and shut down the opposition.
In the case of the Oilers, the first two games of the series has had several of the same issues. At least they were able to walk away with a win in Game 1.
Here are the issues that Knoblauch needs to address in order to limit the damage and walk away with another win in Game 3.
Keep players accountable
This has been an issue all season long, and it has bled into the playoffs. Knoblauch seems to take issue with limiting minutes of any player worth a certain salary. Moreover, ice time is taken away from the younger playes or bottom lines instead of addressing the issues.
Over the past two games in Round 1, Evan Bouchard has been up to his old tricks. We saw him give many inaccurate passes. None were as awful as the one on the power play to an area with no teammates while the Oilers made the most questionable line change of the season, and two Ducks stormed the defensive zone and scored. Bouchard struggled with puck management, giving several pucks away, but his ice time was still up at 26:16. It shouldn’t matter how much money a player commands. If they are a liability, the coach needs to have the confidence to limit their ice time. The coach should change their linemates if necessary, or worst case scenario, bench them.
Anaheim benched Radko Gudas after his untimely fall in Game 1, which led to the tying goal by Jason Dickinson, and Knoblauch needs to take notes. Whether or not he has a strong bond with a player or they qualify as a superstar, the playoffs are a wholly different entity. The players who are producing and the players who are shutting down the opposing team need to see the ice more often. This has not been a tactic we have seen Knoblauch take.
When things get dire in Oil Country, Knoblauch launches all of his superstars together. He overplays them, and hopes that they can turn the tide, even if they haven’t been the difference makers in those games. In short, Knoblauch needs to buckle down and play the people who are winning the games.
Predictable power play
The Oilers have had some issues with their power play, and that is putting it as gently as possible. With six opportunities on the man advantage, the strongest power play in the league has yet to capitalize with a goal. This mainly stems from the fact that the power play has become far too predictable. The Ducks have good sticks to shut things down.
If you bet that the Oilers would skate close to the offensive zone and then drop pass back to McDavid for him to charge in with his unmatched speed, you make money almost 100% of the time. If McDavid skating in doesn’t work, Zach Hyman will park in front of the net with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins skating around to make a pass. Draisaitl will be in his office, waiting to take a knee and send the puck to the short side. This has worked time and time again. With all that success comes a plethora of game tape for Anaheim to study, and it has looked like they studied hard.
The power play needs to make adjustments instead of keeping the top line out for 1:35 of the power play and hoping for the best. McDavid is a generational talent, but he isn’t producing at the moment. That will almost definitely change, but in the mean time, the Oilers need to find new ways to put pressure on the other team.
One thing that has been missing from the power play is the patented “Bouch-Bomb.” While Bouchard constantly finds himself with the puck, he refuses to do anything with it, other than send a weak pass that is picked off by the Ducks and cleared, or in the case of the previous game, they score a shorthanded goal.
This is an issue that mainly sits with the coach, as he is the one to deploy the lines, and changes need to be made by him first. Unfortunately, Knoblauch was gifted generational talent and tends to rely on it to get the job done. This has yet to guide the Oilers to hoisting a cup. Once a team figures out Knoblauch’s tactics, they can shut things down, as there isn’t likely to be any drastic changes.
Ineffective lines
Knoblauch has been criticized over the past two seasons for how he builds the lineup. He is very reliant on the power of the first and second lines. The third and fourth offensive lines are put through the blender so often that they don’t get the chance to learn how to skate with each other. Cohesion has been a large issue due to that.
The main point of contention within the lineup is Knoblauch’s resistance to changing defensive pairings, even when they aren’t working. With how Bouchard has played in the series so far, he should not be seeing more than 20 minutes a night. Jake Walman has been a force to be reckoned with. He has been more deserving of the top pairing with Mattias Ekholm.
We have seen Knoblauch pair Bouchard and Walman together in a few instances in the past two games. However, hat is taking the two most offensive-minded defenceman on the team and putting them together. That pairing leaves a hole in defence, which the Ducks have clearly taken advantage of, scoring nine goals so far in the two games.
With McDavid not playing at his best, he needs wingers that support him in different ways. We saw Nugent-Hopkins come back up to the top line with the injuries to Dickinson and Adam Henrique. That did not yield positive results, unfortunately. With how Anaheim has been boxing McDavid in, he needs players who aren’t afraid to throw a hit in order to clear the lane for the captain. It may be asking a lot to change the top line of the Oilers, but something isn’t working at the moment. It’s the coach’s prerogative to find out exactly what that is. Knoblauch has yet to find the answer, but I hope he does for Game 3.
Confidence is key
Knoblauch doesn’t need to drop the calm-and-collected exterior on the bench, but he needs to show more confidence in the team that he has been given. He has guided the team to two back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals appearances, which is no small feat. But this season, specifically now this postseason, feels more dangerous.
If Knoblauch is the one who called for the line change that resulted in the shorthanded game winner on Wednesday, then trust could be an issue within the locker room and on the bench. When players lose faith in their coach, it shows.. There seem to be signs of mistrust with the coaching staff at the moment.
Knoblauch needs to show confidence in his decisions. He needs to be a stronger presence behind the bench, even if that means becoming a little more animated. As long as it is driven by the passion of the game and isn’t anything Totorella-adjacent, it could fire up the players. It will spark that trust once again, and it could help Knoblauch see another season behind the Oilers bench. This is with the hopes of his name on the greatest trophy in professional sports, the Stanley Cup. If he can make the necessary changes, the Oilers will definitely come out on top in this series. But if he continues to stick with his predictability, a first- or second-round exit will most likely see a change in leadership.
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