The Edmonton Oilers have fired head coach Jay Woodcroft after the team’s 3-9-1 start to the season.
A 4-1 win over the Kraken in Seattle on Saturday night was not enough to buy the 47-year-old any more playing time.
Woodcroft leaves with a 79-41-13 record as Oilers head coach, the fifth-most wins in the NHL since he signed a three-year contract four months after Edmonton fired Dave Tippett.
The #Oilers announced today that Head Coach Jay Woodcroft & Assistant Coach Dave Manson have been relieved of their coaching duties.⁰
Hartford Wolf Pack head coach Kris Knoblauch will assume head coaching duties with the Oilers & will be joined by assistant coach Paul Coffey.
The Oilers announced that Kris Knoblauch of the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack will assume head coaching duties in Edmonton and will be joined by assistant coach Paul Coffey.
In 2022, Woodcroft led the club to the conference finals before falling to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche.
Adam Zainul, an Oilers superfan, told CBC Edmonton that Woodcroft’s firing is a surprise considering the win over the Seattle Kraken on Saturday night.
“If they lost [Saturday] I could understand,” Zainul said. “You do something good and you get punished. So it’s confusing [decision]”.
The Oilers have called a press conference for Sunday afternoon. Knoblauch and Coffey are expected to attend with general manager Ken Holland and Jeff Jackson, the team’s executive director of hockey operations.
