Oilers mutually agree to part ways with assistant general manager Brad Holland

Holland, 43, joined the team as a pro scout ahead of the 2019-20 season, arriving in Edmonton when the Oilers hired his father, Ken, as general manager. The younger Holland spent his first three seasons in the scouting department, before a promotion saw him become the assistant general manager ahead of the 2022-23 season, holding the role for two years. His work there saw him focus on professional scouting side.

Before joining the Oilers, Holland had spent two years with the Toronto Maple Leafs as a team manager.

In Edmonton, Holland’s analytic mind helped reshape how the Oilers front office analyzed players, with him playing a hand in the acquisitions of Zach Hyman, Mattias Ekholm, and Klim Kostin, among others. Those trio of players all have, or continue to work out very well for the organization.

Holland’s promotion to AGM came amid a time when other teams were courting him for front-office roles, and that may be what’s occurred here, too. With his father’s departure and the organization hiring Stan Bowman as the new general manager, amid a slew of other front office shuffles in recent years as Jeff Jackson enters his second season overseeing the hockey operations department, it’s no major surprise to see Holland depart the organization.

Jackson came with a big belief in analytics, hiring Michael Parkatti as the club’s senior director of data and analytics, which was the most significant analytics hire in the franchise’s history. While Holland brought much of that to the table, helping transition the organization’s front office into a more modern thinking, it’s safe to say that analysis won’t be going away anytime soon.

Longtime front office employees Bill Scott and Keith Gretzky remain as the other general managers, with the former focusing on hockey operations and the latter the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, where he serves as their general manager.

There’s no word at the time of writing on potential replacements for Holland.