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Speculation » Who Replaces Knoblauch?

Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850088]	Wed, 04 February 2026 22:51

Skookum Jim
Messages: 5773
Registered: March 2006
Location: Burnaby, BC

5 Cups

Its smelling like a change.. another Oil change?

Who's out there worth a pinch of s t?

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850090 is a reply to message #850088 ]	Wed, 04 February 2026 22:56

HamBlaster
Messages: 1346
Registered: June 2007

1 Cup

Maybe Barry Trotz is willing to be the coach for a while?

Barry was always a great coach; not so much as a GM.

I also suspect that Knob might be done; he has no system, and he's lost most of the team.

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850093 is a reply to message #850090 ]	Wed, 04 February 2026 23:50

Kr55
Messages: 12466
Registered: May 2002
Location: Edmonton

6 Cups

HamBlaster wrote on Wed, 04 February 2026 22:56

Another 2 years later, another coach being tuned out by this group.

Trotz would be interesting. Definitely need to go the harda$s route with the next coach. Someone that will hold every single player accountable. Darryl Sutter need to take some time off from farming?

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
- Lowe, 2013

"Next year I would forecast as another developmental year"
- MacT, 2015

5 x $5,000,000

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850097 is a reply to message #850088 ]	Thu, 05 February 2026 11:59

inverno76
Messages: 2538
Registered: September 2005
Location: Prince Albert, Saskatchew...

2 Cups

Feels like Knobby's leash is going to be shorter than Mangi's after the break. Something needs to break.

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850127 is a reply to message #850088 ]	Sat, 07 February 2026 17:43

PlusOne
Messages: 1728
Registered: July 2006
Location: Regina, Sask

1 Cup

It will be an interesting time around Oilfans when MacT comes back for another term behind the bench. Coffey and the rest of the glory years Oilers filling other asst roles.

Survivor LX(I) and 67 Champ(i)on

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850128 is a reply to message #850127 ]	Sat, 07 February 2026 18:33

Skookum Jim
Messages: 5773
Registered: March 2006
Location: Burnaby, BC

5 Cups

PlusOne wrote on Sat, 07 February 2026 16:43

It will be an interesting time around Oilfans when MacT comes back for another term behind the bench. Coffey and the rest of the glory years Oilers filling other asst roles.

McDAVID! Oh YEAH Baby!! (Thank you Lord!)
Tic-Tac-Tao!
Keep on Rockin' in the Free World

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850129 is a reply to message #850128 ]	Sat, 07 February 2026 20:17

Kr55
Messages: 12466
Registered: May 2002
Location: Edmonton

6 Cups

Skookum Jim wrote on Sat, 07 February 2026 18:33

PlusOne wrote on Sat, 07 February 2026 16:43

It will be an interesting time around Oilfans when MacT comes back for another term behind the bench. Coffey and the rest of the glory years Oilers filling other asst roles.

MacT and Lowe co-head coaches.

https://i0.wp.com/media2.giphy.com/media/VLoN2iW8ii3wA/giphy.gif

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
- Lowe, 2013

"Next year I would forecast as another developmental year"
- MacT, 2015

5 x $5,000,000

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850134 is a reply to message #850088 ]	Mon, 09 February 2026 14:16

Rocksteady
Messages: 622
Registered: March 2007

No Cups

Fans will be blamed by the Oilers beat media one way or another.

The very definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing expecting different results.

Generally Disappointed.

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850135 is a reply to message #850134 ]	Mon, 09 February 2026 14:30

Skookum Jim
Messages: 5773
Registered: March 2006
Location: Burnaby, BC

5 Cups

Rocksteady wrote on Mon, 09 February 2026 13:16

Fans will be blamed by the Oilers beat media one way or another.

".. the fans ran ____ out of town.."

a tired media cliche

McDAVID! Oh YEAH Baby!! (Thank you Lord!)
Tic-Tac-Tao!
Keep on Rockin' in the Free World

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850139 is a reply to message #850088 ]	Tue, 10 February 2026 17:22

Adam
Messages: 7706
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

The more time that passes, the less likely it seems that they're making a change. If they were, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to hold off on making the move when you can get people up to speed over the break.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850141 is a reply to message #850139 ]	Wed, 11 February 2026 01:09

Skookum Jim
Messages: 5773
Registered: March 2006
Location: Burnaby, BC

5 Cups

I think they give KK the end of the year to see how it shakes out.. the defensive coach(s) might be sweatin' though .. 😬
Friedman saying Coffey isn't comin'.. which I'm OK with.. Coffey was telling the D to "make plays" .. which leans more offense.. our D's problem is they can't make defensive plays if their careers depended on it.. only decent D man that can play defense effectively is Ekholm.. and our PK is bottom of the NHL.. not Coffey's territory.

[Updated on: Wed, 11 February 2026 01:57]

McDAVID! Oh YEAH Baby!! (Thank you Lord!)
Tic-Tac-Tao!
Keep on Rockin' in the Free World

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850143 is a reply to message #850141 ]	Wed, 11 February 2026 12:11

Adam
Messages: 7706
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

Skookum Jim wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 01:09

There was apparently a lot of tension and dissent with Coffey there. That's not always productive.

That said, they've made some changes this year that clearly haven't worked. The coaching staff should be working double time to figure out what is going wrong and address it.

The unit last year and the year before was VERY good at suppressing chances. They were under-rated as a defensive unit but the stats suggested that they were strong defensively - just with mediocre netminding. This year, that's no longer the case. Goaltending is still pretty bad, but the defending also is way leakier. Not a good recipe.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850144 is a reply to message #850143 ]	Wed, 11 February 2026 14:47

Kr55
Messages: 12466
Registered: May 2002
Location: Edmonton

6 Cups

Adam wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 12:11

Skookum Jim wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 01:09

Was the tension with the players or the other coaches? Other coaches, then there probably is a bigger issue here.

I'm hesitant to give Coffey all kinds of credit for being some kind of technical defensive hockey genius, but boy oh boy have our defensive metric fallen off a cliff this season. Is it what guys are being coached to do? Or is there a level of accountability that isn't being demanded this year vs the previos half decade or so.

Our defensive metrics are the worst they have been in a long time, before the age of Skinner. We are back to the Eakins days basically in the quality of chances we are allowing. Abd Eakins achieved that by telling guys to just not care about the slot and overload chasing pucks on the boards.

I'm not sure if these guys are determined to prove that Skinner was never the issue by just sabotaging everything about playing defensive hockey, or there is some other big issue happening that Coffey was helping address while he was here.

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
- Lowe, 2013

"Next year I would forecast as another developmental year"
- MacT, 2015

5 x $5,000,000

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850145 is a reply to message #850144 ]	Wed, 11 February 2026 15:16

Adam
Messages: 7706
Registered: August 2005
Location: Edmonton, AB

6 Cups

Kr55 wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 14:47

Adam wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 12:11

Skookum Jim wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 01:09

Rumour has it that there was lots of friction between Coffey and the coaching staff. Not sure about the players.

That's not THAT surprising. Coffey is a buddy of management and the owner and was not a Knoblauch hire, just as he wasn't a McLellan hire. McLellan hated him so much that he gave an anonymous and yet very obvious interview with Mark Spector, blasting the "Red Wine Summits" and talking about how little Coffey liked to do anything with the other coaches among all kinds of other gripes.

There is some player friction against Knoblauch as well though - some of the guys further down the lineup blaming him for their struggles. Frederic had some quote about hoping you don't get a whistle in the offensive zone or an icing or a TV timeout or anything, because you know you're coming off the ice then. And Derek Ryan, who was in the room last year, also piping in on that and saying if the depth guys don't get more of a defined role, then it's always just Connor & Leon's team.

Gregor did a comparison vs the other playoff teams in the West and our bottom-6 isn't getting significantly less minutes than any of the other teams, but they're scoring less. He didn't look at zone starts, but I suppose that could be a factor if they only ever start in D-zone or neutral ice. That said, their production is pretty miserable so hard to convince the coach that a winning strategy is putting them on the ice more.

I don't love that we have guys like Tomasek wanting out of here fast though. That definitely suggests there is something there and he felt there were things at play that were going to prevent him ever being successful here.

I wonder if some of the other teams don't go more power vs power and let the third lines play each other, especially against weaker opponents - leading to more offence? If you're giving young guys like Howard, Savoie, etc. no O-zone starts then it would be somewhat frustrating I'm sure. They want to produce but sometimes you have to spoonfeed guys a little bit to get them going. That doesn't really seem to be the case though if this is accurate:

https://www.nhl.com/nhl-edge/comparisons/skaters/David-Tomas ek-8485493/20252026/2/Isaac-Howard-8483455/20252026/2

Pretty even usage according to that. And Frederic's aren't much worse - 28% o-zone, 36 neutral, 35 d-zone.

I don't know. Something's wrong. The team is paying good money to a bunch of people to figure out what the hell it is.

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
#FireBobbyNicks

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850146 is a reply to message #850145 ]	Wed, 11 February 2026 16:19

Kr55
Messages: 12466
Registered: May 2002
Location: Edmonton

6 Cups

Adam wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 15:16

Kr55 wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 14:47

Adam wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 12:11

Skookum Jim wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 01:09

Saddest thing with his team right now is McDavid has been absolutely on fire for almost 3 months straight now. I guess Bouch too offensively. Drai playing pretty well too. And almost no one else is along for the ride. The captain leading by example seems to mean absolutely nothing with this team.

Personally I think a lack of a 3rd line C that can actually make plays is a big handicap for our depth now. Henrique can barely do a thing 5v5 now. Roslovic is a winger, and plays like a winger even when he lines up at C. And there is nothing else. Nuge can't drive a line, so he just stays on the wing, and is having a pretty off year so far anyways. There is no good opportunity for these young wingers we have to learn their NHL game against medium/low end competition with a decent center. If they play with McDavid or Drai, they are going to be up against top comp, and think they are making it clear they can't handle it yet.

As for our defensive methods/results. Someone needs to figure something out there. The results are just abysmal.

5v5 GA/60 is our highest since 14/15, and it's not just bad luck. Last few years we had runs of being scored on like crazy when we weren't giving up lots of good chances, so our xGA was way lower than our actual GA. But this year, almost the same, we are getting pretty close to what we deserve based on the chances we're giving up.

There is no season going back to 2007 where our 5v5 xGA/60 was worse than it is this year. This is likely our worst xGA/60 season in the cap era right now. Somehow this team finds a way to battle any narrative about what could have been the problem with the team. Skinner sucks, yay, we got rid of him. Oh yeah? Well, let's play the crappiest defense ever now to try to prove Skinner was never the issue! Such an annoying team, seriously.

[Updated on: Wed, 11 February 2026 16:23]

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
- Lowe, 2013

"Next year I would forecast as another developmental year"
- MacT, 2015

5 x $5,000,000

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850147 is a reply to message #850146 ]	Wed, 11 February 2026 22:13

Skookum Jim
Messages: 5773
Registered: March 2006
Location: Burnaby, BC

5 Cups

Kr55 wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 15:19

I think its D personnel.. #1 lack of smarts (turnovers), #2 lack of speed and agility, #3 lack of skill #4 just weak .. can't break a cycle, win pucks, tie up ab open man, and have zero intimidation

Seravalli called it on Stauffer's show..

Quote:

“Darnell Nurse is this team’s biggest problem, start and finish.
Like, you could end it right there.
At nine and a quarter million bucks, he needs to be an impact piece, and the Oilers are trying to survive in spite of him.”

[Updated on: Wed, 11 February 2026 22:15]

McDAVID! Oh YEAH Baby!! (Thank you Lord!)
Tic-Tac-Tao!
Keep on Rockin' in the Free World

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850148 is a reply to message #850147 ]	Wed, 11 February 2026 22:35

Kr55
Messages: 12466
Registered: May 2002
Location: Edmonton

6 Cups

Skookum Jim wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 22:13

Kr55 wrote on Wed, 11 February 2026 15:19

Quote:

Forwards probably take some responsibility too. How bad we are this year defensively needs some serious study from the org.

I would agree though, this may be the weakest performing D group we have had in some time.

Ekholm has taken a big step back in his defensive ability since his injury. Maybe age is a part too.

Bouch is Bouch. Regular season his effort in his end goes up and down all year long. Wait for playoffs for him to up his defensive game. His defensive game last 2 playoffs was better than what anyone on this current roster is showing.

Walman has had a very tough season in his own end. I'm not sure if Walman was ever that good at actual defending either, he seemed to be another guy that needs to just push offense to reduce time in his own end. Knowing his 3th biggest D contract was going to have to play with Nurse, I think Bowman didn't think this through very well. This could be a nightmare D pair for some time now if Walman doesn't elevate his game a lot. I hope him getting his retirement deal already doesn't kill his motivation.

Nurse ... what more can we say. Always needs a babysitter, and we traded away the only 2 guys we had to start the year that have successfully done that job with him for any period of time. We were forced to trade Kulak because of terrible cap management, and Bowman not addressing goaltending in the summer and doing a mid-season panic trade. Maybe a bit scary to think Nurse may be slowing down with each year now too. He needs his skating to have a chance to get out of the trouble he constantly finds himself in. He has never been a good passer, so his ability to skate pucks diminishing moves him to being a Dman that can't help at all to get pucks out of our end.

3rd pair is just total meh. We have destroyed our D depth. We have 0 D in his org outside the top 4 that play like they should be anywhere near a top 4 D spot (can argue we also have 2 guys in the top 4 that don't look like they should be in a top 4 too). They are questionable to even be in a bottom pair in the NHL.

Mistakes have been made it seems. Again, by new incompetent manager.

[Updated on: Wed, 11 February 2026 22:55]

"We need to get better immediately. That starts today"
- Lowe, 2013

"Next year I would forecast as another developmental year"
- MacT, 2015

5 x $5,000,000

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Re: Who Replaces Knoblauch? [message #850149 is a reply to message #850088 ]	Wed, 11 February 2026 23:09

Skookum Jim
Messages: 5773
Registered: March 2006
Location: Burnaby, BC

5 Cups

Seravelli on Karius yesterday..

Its not only Oiler fans that see these things..

Quote:

“It’s also not just an asset thing, like it becomes a true salary cap juggle,” Seravalli said. “I mean, what was the rush to sign (d-man Jake) Walman to the extension (last summer)? What was the impetus to give an eight year deal to Trent Frederic? They got a little bit over their skis, I think, in terms of their aggression. Sometimes aggression needs to be commended. Teams that jump first and sign players to long-term, big money contracts a lot of times come out ahead. But in this case, it seems like their evaluation process has been a little bit off.”

Edmonton doesn’t have answers on defence right now, Seravalli said. “The thing is, none of the Oilers’ defensemen are miracle workers. Your partner can’t absolve the sins of Darnell Nurse’s game — and no one and, not Tristan Jarry at times, can bail this team out from their defensive lapses when Evan Bouchard has a critical turnover or gets walked. There is no magic potion for that and I don’t see that coming. There’s no cavalry coming given that they haven’t even found a way to get someone to take on Andrew Mangiapane’s contract yet.”

McDAVID! Oh YEAH Baby!! (Thank you Lord!)
Tic-Tac-Tao!
Keep on Rockin' in the Free World

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