Oilers coaching situation not as messy as first thought

The Edmonton Oilers may be making a coaching change, as word came out via report from NHL insider Frank Seravalli that the Oilers requested permission to interview Bruce Cassidy from the Vegas Golden Knights, who did not grant it.

That raised eyebrows because the team has not yet moved on from incumbent head coach Kris Knoblauch, who led the team to back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances in 2024 and 2025.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by host of The Sheet Jeff Marek to discuss the reality around the Oilers’ head coaching situation.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I want to get your thoughts on this whole Bruce Cassidy thing. Jason Gregor wrote a really good piece at OilersNation.com about how it’s unprofessional, like you can’t let Knoblauch twist in the wind. And I get that, and it’s messy. It’s the same kind of stuff that people ripped Vancouver for with Bruce Boudreau a number of years ago, right? My read on this is that the Oilers were maybe even split internally on what they wanted to do, but everyone agreed that Bruce Cassidy was an upgrade on Kris Knoblauch. So it’s like, “Okay, if we can get Bruce Cassidy, we’ll make a coaching change. If we’re not going to get Bruce Cassidy, let’s make Kris hire new assistants and we’ll let him keep his job.” And the fact this got out obviously is a very bad look for the Oilers, but like, that’s my read on what might have been happening internally with this Bruce thing.

Jeff Marek: Let me push back on that a little bit. I don’t think it’s a bad look on the Oilers because this is how it’s done. The only difference is it’s public. Everybody knows this. Kris Knoblauch knows this. Like this is how things are done. The unfortunate part, both for Vegas, for Edmonton and the coach here, is that it became public. But I can assure you, like coaches, teams will talk to other coaches before they make a decision on their coach because unless it’s the offseason, nobody wants to jump until they know where they’re going to land, or they have a place to land. But this is the way it’s done and everybody understands this. Like look, and again, you can say, one of the rules that we’ve learned now going back to the salary cap when everything changed in 2005, and this is true behind the bench and this is true on the ice as well. Under a salary cap, if you have a chance to improve your team, even if it’s only slightly, you have to do it. Once upon a time, you could spend your way over a problem. With that gone, if you have a chance to improve your fourth line, your first line, your second pairing, your backup goaltender, even if it’s only by a slight, slight little bit, you have to do it, because that is efficiency. There are two teams specifically that seem like they’re on a collision course right now, and they do that. One is Carolina, the other is Colorado. So if you have a chance, you have to take it. And especially if you’re the Edmondton Oilers right now and you believe the Bruce Cassidy can get you a Stanley Cup, where perhaps the perhaps soon-to-be dismissed coach that you have now can’t, even though it’s going to be an expensive bite for the owner, you have to do it. That’s the rule of the salary cap. That’s the lesson that all 32 teams are learning here and should have learned by now.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…