EDMONTON — For good reason, the go-to question at a time like this has always been, “So, that’s how many coaches for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins…?”
The answer, as the Edmonton Oilers mercifully relieved Kris Knoblauch of his duties late last night, is that the next one will be No. 10 for the longest-serving Oiler.
That’s right, folks: Nugent-Hopkins’ next game will be career regular-season game No. 1,032, and his 10th coach will be sending him over the boards.
In lighter times, it has become a quiz we’ve challenged Nugent-Hopkins to partake in. He eventually names them all, but it is not without some serious recall.
At a time like this — with another solid man pushed under Edmonton’s coaching carousel — it’s really not very funny at all.
A 100-games-and-change shelf life. That’s what a coach gets here in Northern Alberta, a number skewed somewhat by temp gigs handed to Todd Nelson and Ken Hitchcock over the years.
It may end with a Zoom call for Ralph Krueger, or perhaps when a young coach is just 133 games into his tenure, as Jay Woodcroft was.
This time was particularly unseemly, as team president Jeff Jackson and general manager Stan Bowman were caught with their collective hand in the coaching cookie jar, outed this week for having approached Vegas for permission to speak with Bruce Cassidy before firing Knoblauch.
On Wednesday evening, they moved on from Knoblauch after just 233 regular-season games. He had coached the team to the Stanley Cup Final in two of his three seasons behind Edmonton’s bench.
And even then, Bowman left Knoblauch twisting in the wind for a few days before informing him of the move.
Such is the state of being an NHL coach, it seems:
Win one Cup for Vegas, as Cassidy did, and the Golden Knights fire you with eight games left in a season. Then they try to control where your career path takes you — or at least delay things to the speed at which they’d prefer you move on.
Coach the Oilers to a pair of Stanley Cups, like Knoblauch, and they don’t even have the decency to look you in the eye before calling around behind your back.
There is no loyalty in sports, folks. There is less in the coaching world.
And here in Edmonton, where two productive, award-winning, Hall-of-Famers-to-be front the lineup, it’s never about the players.
Sure, the GM tweaks the roster and takes care of the signings. But in Edmonton, when there is trouble, it lands at the feet of the coach or the goalie — full stop.
It’s low-hanging fruit, yes. And sometimes Darnell Nurse takes a turn.
But as we approach the plausible end of the Connor McDavid era, the absolute terror of laying any of the blame for this ongoing dysfunction at the feet of The Big Boys will become more than just palpable.
And increasingly, McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have fed the culture.
“They were able to stay on top of us all over the place and we were never really able to generate any momentum up the ice,” McDavid said in the frustrating moments after a Game 6 loss in the 2025 Stanley Cup Final. “We kept trying the same thing over and over again, banging our heads against the wall.”
Did he mean that the game plan never changed, or that the Oilers could not crack Florida’s defensive scheme? Or did it merely sound that way?
“They have a great system. They’re perfectly coached. They all know what they’re doing all over the ice. They’re a great team,” McDavid said after a loss to Tampa in March.
Was he gushing over Jon Cooper, or was that a backhanded slap at his own coach?
Or when Draisaitl, after a loss in Calgary sent Edmonton into its Olympic break on a downer, declared, “It starts with the coaches."
“Everybody,” he then added. “You're never going to win if you have four or five guys going, and it starts at the top. Our leaders can be better.”
Everyone can be better. But remember, it starts with the coaches.
It always starts with the coaches here.
