Kings, Oilers tied their wagons to big-name GMs that NHL has passed by

The Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings are two of the most disappointing teams in the NHL this season, and their struggles can be traced back to similar moves — the hiring of big-name general managers who had success more than a decade ago but have not been able to adapt to the modern NHL game.

In Edmonton, it was the hiring of Stan Bowman.

In Los Angeles, it was the hiring of Ken Holland before the start of the 2025-26 season.

On Sunday, the Kings made head coach Jim Hiller the fall guy for Holland's mismanagement. 

It remains to be seen what, or if, the Oilers will try to fix their issues, but in both cases, it starts with the people in charge of building the rosters.

Stan Bowman and Ken Holland are far removed from their NHL success 

It is not that Bowman and Holland have been without their success in the NHL. The former won multiple Stanley Cups in the Chicago Blackhawks front office, while the latter helped build four Stanley Cup winners with the Detroit Red Wings.

That commands and deserves respect. 

But professional sports is a fluid environment that is always changing and evolving, and you have to be able to adapt to those changes. Salary cap management, style of play, analytics, player management and everything else that goes into building a team have to be modernized. 

Both have failed. Now with multiple teams.

In Holland's case, he left the Red Wings in such bad shape due to a lack of player development and salary cap mismanagement that it has taken Steve Yzerman seven years just to get the team to the fringes of playoff contention. 

He eventually landed in Edmonton for a few years and was unable to build up the depth around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to get them a championship. Bad investments, a lack of depth and a hesitancy to go all in consistently held the team back. 

In his first year with the Kings, he worsened the defense with a brutal offseason that saw him overpay Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin in free agency while also failing to upgrade an offense that was not anything more than mediocre. The trade for Artemi Panarin was likely a case of way too little, way too late. It should not be a surprise that the team has failed. Now the head coach takes the fall for it.

When it comes to Bowman, he inherited a great situation in Chicago where a championship core was already in place. All he had to do was not mess it up and make some moves on the fringes. But around 2016, when it came time for him to rebuild the team, it proved to be a massive failure. The Blackhawks are still trying to recover.

With the Oilers, almost every major move has flopped.

The Trent Frederic contract is looking like a horrific long-term investment for a fourth-line talent. His handling of the goaltending situation has not only failed to fix it, but the Tristan Jarry trade has turned into a massive win for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

On Sunday, Andrew Mangiapane, one of his offseason additions, was placed on waivers. 

These two teams have met in the playoffs four years in a row.

Both hoped that former championship general managers could help get them over the top. 

They failed to recognize that those championships were over a decade ago and that the past few years have been an exercise in futility for both. The game passed them by. They did not adapt or adjust. It should have been obvious to everybody based on recent results. The Oilers and Kings both missed the memo on that.