The Edmonton Oilers fired Kris Knoblauch on Thursday, cutting ties with the coach who led them to consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearances before a disappointing 2025-26 season, a league source has confirmed to The Athletic. TSN\u2019s Ryan Rishaug was the first to report Knoblauch\u2019s firing.<\/p>\n
Knoblauch, 47, was hired in November 2023 to replace Jay Woodcroft, and in his less than three full regular seasons, his Oilers posted a 135-77-21 record and won two Western Conference titles before twice falling short against the Florida Panthers \u2014 including a seven-game series in 2024 \u2014 despite the presence of future Hall of Famers Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.<\/p>\n
Those losses were a precursor to a lackluster 2025-26 season that ended with a first-round series loss to the Anaheim Ducks in six games. This season, Edmonton saw sustained greatness from McDavid and Draisaitl, along with poor goaltending, leaky defensive play and a group of depth forwards, assembled by general manager Stan Bowman, that failed to adequately support their superstar teammates.<\/p>\n
The Oilers rounded into shape in Knoblauch\u2019s first two seasons, finishing with 104 and 101 points, respectively. That wasn\u2019t the case in 2025-26, in part because of a disastrous midseason goalie swap. The Oilers sent former starter Stuart Skinner \u2014 who was wobbly at various points in their postseason runs \u2014 to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Tristan Jarry. Skinner stabilized in Pittsburgh while Jarry cratered in Edmonton, posting an .858 save percentage and eventually getting benched for the stretch run in favor of Connor Ingram. The Oilers finished with 93 points, second in a weak Pacific Division.<\/p>\n
Though McDavid won his sixth Art Ross Trophy as the NHL\u2019s leading scorer, he was clearly slowed in the playoffs by an apparent ankle injury. So while the Oilers managed to make the playoffs \u2014 which wasn\u2019t always assured \u2014 their stay was ultimately too short and too uninspiring to earn Knoblauch another season in charge.<\/p>\n
\u201c(When you\u2019re) an average team with high expectations, you\u2019re gonna be disappointed,\u201d said McDavid, who played most of the Anaheim series on a fracture in what Knoblauch called his \u201cfoot\/ankle\u201d area. \u201cWe just never found it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whoever Edmonton hires as Knoblauch\u2019s replacement will be McDavid\u2019s sixth NHL coach. The firing comes before Knoblauch\u2019s three-year contract extension officially kicked in. He signed that deal in October and is due to be paid by the Oilers through the 2028-29 season.<\/p>\n
Now, the search is on for a coach capable of maximizing what could be the end of McDavid\u2019s time in Edmonton. Last summer, the three-time MVP signed a contract extension through 2027-28 rather than another longer-term commitment. It was both a team-friendly move and one that signaled that the franchise was effectively on the clock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Edmonton Oilers fired Kris Knoblauch on Thursday, cutting ties with the coach who led them to consecutive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1792,385,99],"class_list":["post-642883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}