Hmmm, I wonder who Connor McDavid will hire as the next head coach of the Edmonton Oilers.
OK, it might not be that cut and dry, but you cannot tell me the superstar captain of the team will not have a significant vote on a replacement for Kris Knoblauch, who was unceremoniously dismissed following a first-round ousting by the Anaheim Ducks. This came on the heels of Knoblauch guiding the Oilers to back-to-back appearances in the Stanley Cup Final.
This is, after all, the same organization that tailormade itself from the top down to suit McDavid's image leading up to the contract extension he signed at the beginning of the season. The team not-so-secretively surrounded him with familiar faces from his past.
In a span of three-and-a-half months in 2023, his former agent, Jeff Jackson, was named CEO of hockey operations. Knoblauch, his former junior head coach, was brought in behind the bench. And former Erie Otters linemate Connor Brown was added to the roster.
Talk about bending over backward to try and make your star player happy.
Only, McDavid showed he has been far from happy this season. For instance, he lauded the opposing coach following a loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
"They have a great system, they are perfectly coached. They all know what they are doing all over the ice. It is impressive. They are a great team," McDavid said of Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper on the heels of a 5-2 loss on March 21. "They are extremely well-coached, they are extremely well-organized. They are very rehearsed in everything they do. It is very impressive. And when you do break them down, they have a heck of a goalie to backstop them."
In other words, everything the Oilers are not. And even though both teams went on to suffer a first-round playoff exit, Cooper is still the bench boss in Tampa while Knoblauch joins the unemployment line, no longer the cure to all the Oilers' ills.
McDavid is not the only Oilers superstar to criticize the team's coaching this season, either.
Back before the Olympic break in February, Leon Draisaitl followed up a 4-3 loss to the Calgary Flames by strafing the entire team for underperforming, including the coaching staff and management.
"It starts with the coaches. Everybody. You are never going to win if you have four or five guys going, and it starts at the top," Draisaitl said.
Their words carry weight, and can only have contributed to the dismissal of Knoblauch and assistant coach Mark Stuart. Especially after both players took to the podium at year's end to say the club had taken a big step backward this season.
The question now is, just how much of a voice will McDavid and Draisaitl have in choosing their sixth different head coach since they began playing together here in 2015-16?
