from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,
It’s likely over for Jay Woodcroft, the whip-smart head coach who simply has run out of answers for his Edmonton Oilers.
Edmonton lost 3-2 to the woeful San Jose Sharks on Thursday, dropping into a tie with San Jose for 32nd place in the 32-team National Hockey League. Edmonton is 2-9-1 on the season, and is already 14 points back of third place in the Pacific Division.
With only the faint hope of a wild-card berth as their fading goal, if general manager Ken Holland still believes his team has a playoff prayer, he will fire Woodcroft on Friday in Seattle.
For this team to be in this position — with a roster of this pedigree — is a firing offence. It’s time for a new set of eyes and a new voice, before this season becomes a long, painful march to the World Championships.
“I worry about taking care of my daily business and my daily process,” said Woodcroft, when asked about his level of concern about his job. “Making sure that I give my players something to focus on and concentrate on.
“No one's happy with where we're at. We all own it.”
Highlights are below.
holy shit, they need to hire Babcock so my brain explodes!
The thing about Woodcroft is, who really knows how good he is. Most teams get a dead cat bounce when they have a new head coach, and that's exactly what happened last spring and carried them into the playoffs. But the cat is still dead, and it's not bouncing anymore.
The team is 27th in scoring so far this season after being the highest scoring team last year. That's on the coach.
from David Staples of the Edmonton Journal,
The Edmonton Oilers have just two wins in 12 games. Doom has descended on the club in rapid fashion, in no small part because Edmonton is out of step with the NHL.
They are a firewagon team in a park-the-bus league.
The Oilers desire to press and attack, press and attack. They prefer to use their surreal speed and skill to slice open the opposition slot. But the dominant tactic in the NHL just now is to pack the defensive slot with defenders, keep everything to the outside, and prevent open shots in front of the goalie at all costs.
Edmonton keeps aggressively bashing into that parked bus, but when it bashes and pushes too hard, the team leaves itself open to the counterattack.
So far this year Edmonton has allowed 23 goals against on the rush, while scoring just seven. Edmonton has allowed just 31 goals in total. That ratio of 23 goals against on the rush out of 31 goals is appalling. Its like the Oilers have forgotten how to play hockey.
But its more than that. The Oilers are struggling because theyre ill-suited for the kind of cautious, highly-disciplined defensive game that other teams are employing, the same strategy and tactics that Las Vegas used so effectively to beat Edmonton in the 2023 playoffs.
continued
Thought about watching that game, bkz I knew that would happen. But it all sounds super depressing, even tho I have no strong feelings either way about either team.
How desperate do things need to get there? I feel for Kenny, too, inheriting this mess, but he hasn't done much to fix it, either.
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