So far, so good in the Kris Knoblauch era.
Just one day after the Edmonton Oilers fired Jay Woodcroft as head coach, the team hosted the New York Islanders and beat them 4-1, led by a four-point effort from Leon Draisaitl and a goal and assist from Connor McDavid.
“It feels amazing to get that first win,” Knoblauch said. “I liked how our team played. I think the most important thing is we didn’t get desperate where things weren’t going well.”
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen discuss Knoblauch’s head coaching debut and if this can turn things around for an Oilers’ team that, as of Nov. 14, sits seventh in the Western Conference’s Pacific Division with a 4-9-1 record.
Tyler Yaremchuk: An interesting result in Edmonton as the Kris Knoblauch era begins. There’s been a lot of Oilers talk in the last week in the hockey world, but last night, Edmonton picked up their second straight win. Four points from Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid got out of the worst slump of his career. Did the Oilers show you anything in game one under Kris Knoblauch that has you believing they can turn this around?
Colby Cohen: The Oilers definitely showed me something last night, but I’m not ready to say it has anything to do with Knoblauch. What I will tell you and what I do like is: they went down early in that game, the Islanders score a goal a minute into the game and the Oilers could have thrown the towel at that point. So credit where credit is due.
Then the big boys take over and the power play shows up. Draisaitl had a couple incredibly dominating shifts, maybe some of the most dominating we’ve seen. McDavid with the speed on his goal. When you need your big boys to step up in a moment like that, and they do, I think those are all encouraging signs.
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