Kris Knoblauch has been left twisting in the wind after the news leaked this week that the Edmonton Oilers asked for—but were denied—permission to speak to Bruce Cassidy about their head coaching job. The thing is, Knoblauch still holds that job (as of Wednesday evening). In fact, he has a three-year extension that doesn't even kick in until next season . The Oilers are now getting dragged through the mud for their handling of the situation. Jason Gregor wrote in OilersNation that ...
The Toronto Maple Leafs continue to make headlines off the ice as the team announced on Wednesday they've fired Craig Berube from his head coaching position. Now, John Chayka and Mats Sundin get to bring in a fresh perspective behind the bench and hopefully the players will respond next season. There's been several names already linked to the Leafs bench, including Bruce Cassidy, who recently tried to interview with the Edmonton Oilers, but was denied by the Vegas Golden Knights, who still hav...
Did the Edmonton Oilers err in asking for permission to speak with Bruce Cassidy while Kris Knoblauch is still under contract? I believe they did and I wrote about it yesterday, but today I want to look at recent hires across the NHL to see how they were handled. I had many people suggest that…
The Vegas Golden Knights have denied permission to talk to their staff members before, says Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He was on The FAN Hockey Show on Wednesday morning laying out the Bruce Cassidy situation, after the initial Frank Seravalli report that the Edmonton Oilers hadn’t received permission yet to talk to the Vegas coach 24…
The Edmonton Oilers appear ready to rip off the band-aid and make it official, removing Kris Knoblauch from his post as head coach. It comes amid an awkward time for the team, a day after word leaked out that the team had tried to get permission to speak with Bruce Cassidy, only to be stalled…
The Oilers are heading into their most important summer in ages, and while it was always going to be weird and messy, I’m not sure anyone expected it to start with a leak that turned into a fork in the road. After getting bounced by the Anaheim Ducks in six games after a season of…
This story just keeps getting stranger and stranger. And the back-and-forth, he-said, she-said, about the Vegas Golden Knights withholding permission from the Edmonton Oilers to speak with their former head coach, Bruce Cassidy, continues. Now, as it turns out, the Los Angeles Kings may not have spoken with Cassidy yet after all. The situation is…
As of early Wednesday morning, Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch still has a job, despite being caught searching for a replacement. Frank Seravalli reported on Tuesday that the Oilers had asked the Vegas Golden Knights for permission to speak to Bruce Cassidy, but were dragging their feet and hadn’t given an answer. With that…
The Edmonton Oilers lost to the Anaheim Ducks in six games in the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the organizational autopsy that followed has identified two recurring problems that GM Stan Bowman needs to solve this summer.
The blue line needs a right-shot defenseman with size, and the goaltending needs an answer beyond the current group.
Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Sun identified two trade targets he believes Bowman should pursue to address both.
Michael Kesselring -...
Welcome to Oilersnation’s annual player review series, where we dive into the Edmonton Oilers season player by player. We’ll look back at the season that was, what kind of impact each player had, and what we could see from them next season. You can read about the analytics behind my analysis here. As the 2026…
One of the questions about the Vegas Golden Knights stalling the Edmonton Oilers’ ability to interview Bruce Cassidy was how the Los Angeles Kings played into all of this. After all, in Frank Seravalli’s initial report, which detailed the drama, he indicated the Kings were after Cassidy for their own vacant head coaching spot, but…
While Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch’s days appear to be numbered, front office changes are also on the cards, according to insiders. Dave Pagnotta of The Fourth Period was a guest on Oilersnation Everyday on Tuesday to discuss the report that the Oilers had asked the Vegas Golden Knights to speak to Bruce Cassidy,…
Few NHL head coaches know what Kris Knoblauch is going through more than Bruce Boudreau. Boudreau was unceremoniously fired by the Vancouver Canucks in 2023, and on Tuesday was on Daily Faceoff’s Morning Cuppa Hockey, where he was asked about what Knoblauch could be going through in the wake of the Edmonton Oilers trying to speak…
The Edmonton Oilers got caught, and now, they have to fall on the sword. They’re hitched to head coach Kris Knoblauch with his three-year extension set to kick in next season, but speculation has grown over the last few days that his job is not safe. Turns out they’ve had a wandering eye, and now…
The Edmonton Oilers are saying the quiet part out loud: they want to change their head coach. Things had been relatively quiet on that front in the days that followed Edmonton’s first-round exit, but late last week, smoke started to billow that a coaching change could be imminent. While some expected an announcement as early…
The indications of Kris Knoblauch's impending demise as Edmonton Oilers head coach have reached another level, as a report on Tuesday suggests that the Oilers have asked the Vegas Golden Knights for permission to speak to their ex-head coach Bruce Cassidy. Vegas has denied permission for Edmonton, however. League sources say #Oilers have sought permission to interview Bruce Cassidy as they contemplate significant coaching staff changes. To this point, sources say @GoldenKnights have with...
The Edmonton Oilers’ coaching discussion, search, or whatever you call it, it looks like a “clustereff.” This morning, Frank Seravalli reported that the Edmonton Oilers sought permission to interview Bruce Cassidy, but the Vegas Golden Knights have withheld permission, which is within their rights as they are paying Cassidy. Eventually, Vegas will grant permission, but…
Imagine just days after one of the most gut-wrenching losses in your career, you and your teammates were embroiled in a public scandal after a scathing article accused you of being a team of drug addicts. That’s what happened to the Edmonton Oilers in 1985-86. Steve Smith infamously banked the puck off of Grant Fuhr’s…
As the Edmonton Oilers contemplate a potential coaching change, the team’s attempts to speak with Bruce Cassidy have been stalled by the Vegas Golden Knights. The Golden Knights haven’t outright denied permission for the Oilers to speak with their former head coach, who remains under contract, NHL insider Frank Seravalli reported, but the team hasn’t…
The first step in any successful offseason is to properly identify where things went wrong. For the Edmonton Oilers, there’s a lot you can point to. Whether you’re discussing goaltending, defence, or special teams, none of it was up to snuff in their first-round series against the Anaheim Ducks. Now that the dust has settled,…
Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid has been named as the fourth-best player in the last 50 years of the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). McDavid was drafted first overall by the Erie Otters in the 2012 Ontario Hockey League (OHL) draft, becoming just the third player in CHL history to be granted exceptional player status, allowing…
One of the top free-agent goaltenders in this 2026 unrestricted class is former Edmonton Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner. After he departed from the team in the Tristan Jarry trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 12, Skinner played through ups and downs, but did help the Pens earn a playoff berth. However, after losing three…
Welcome back to another edition of Ask Dubey. The Edmonton Oilers playoff run has come and gone like that, and it’s right into off-season mode for the team. On this week’s edition of Ask Dubey, I fielded some questions about who my top goaltending target, and top free agent targets would be. Let’s dive into them….
Stan Bowman has gotten a lot of heat during his time as the Edmonton Oilers general manager, and deservedly so. Some of the big swings that he’s made, like the Tristan Jarry trade and acquisition and extension of Trent Frederic, have really blown up in his face. While it’s totally fair to criticize him for…
The Edmonton Oilers’ off-season goal is simple: Find players who can help keep the puck out of the net. In all situations in 2025-26, the Oilers scored the sixth-most goals thanks to middle-of-the-pack five-on-five scoring and the top-rated power play. However, they leaked goals all season, allowing the sixth-most five-on-five goals and having a penalty…