The Edmonton Oilers operated as a meat grinder this past season, ruthlessly and relentlessly replacing under-performing players. The off-season in the summer of 2025 was busy, but the pace kept up through the 2025-26 regular season. Any player who failed to perform was cast aside by General Manager Stan Bowman and Coach Kris Knoblauch.
On Oilers Now this week, NHL insider Frank Seravalli discussed the Oilers' meat grinder with host Bob Stauffer. Seravalli highlighted the compounding effects of the team's decisions, saying, “The problem is that they’ve gotten further away. The problem is a series of decisions — in part due to the ‘grass-is-always-greener’ effect, I think in part to a quick twitch to make some changes — that they’ve found themselves in a spot where each decision is not in a vacuum from another, that they’ve had compounding effects.”
Seravalli mentioned trading away centre Ryan McLeod, the failure of the Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg offer sheets, and the recent Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak for Tristan Jarry trade, and how such trades forced the Oilers to make other moves to compensate. “Like why Victor Arvidsson gone, Andrew Mangiapane in?” Seravalli asked. “Why not just say, ‘Hey, this guy had the worst season of his career or one of them. It didn’t work, but doesn’t mean next season won’t work.’”
Asked to give a percentage on culpability of management, players, and coaching staff, Seravalli said: “I will say management, 60 per cent, players, 15 percent, and coach, 25.”
Now that the season is over, that same quick-twitch, grass-is-always-greener, meat grinder process could well be applied to Knoblauch, who oversaw the team as it scraped into the playoffs only to be thumped out of Stanley Cup contention in the first round by the Anaheim Ducks.
But if we take Seravalli’s assessment as correct, what about team management, the 60 per cent responsible group for the team’s mediocrity? It’s unlikely that Bowman himself will face the axe, but it’s a possibility, given the pressure to succeed in the next two seasons, the length of Connor McDavid’s final contract, and the fact that a few of Bowman’s many moves as GM were in part responsible for the team’s mediocre result. Most of the real damage happened in the summer of 2024 before Bowman was hired, namely the failure to sign Holloway and Broberg to new deals before lavishing contracts on Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner, and Adam Henrique.
But, as Bowman has said, there’s little doubt owner Daryl Katz will assess the work of hockey bosses Jeff Jackson and Bowman. When we dig into Bowman’s work, I see a number of positive moves.
Positive Moves
John Klingberg. Bowman took a chance and signed the veteran free agent defenseman who was coming off a lengthy recovery from major surgery, but Klingberg was a solid support player in the run to the 2025 Cup Final.
Vasily Podkolzin. A massive steal of a deal, trading a fourth round pick for Podkolzin, who has turned into a top-six power forward. Bowman’s new deal with Podkolzin, three years at $3 million per year, looks like it will also turn out to be a huge bargain for the Oilers.
