The Edmonton Oilers have had enough, and Ken Holland has finally fired a coach. Dave Tippett is out, according to Darren Dreger of TSN, after another embarrassing loss last night. The Oilers managed 41 shots but fell 4-1 to the Chicago Blackhawks, allowing early powerplay goals in both the first and third periods. Dreger adds that Jim Playfair has also been fired, while Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson from the Bakersfield Condors will take over as head coach and assistant respectively. In a release that followed, the team confirmed the dismissal of Tippett and Playfair, adding that assistants Glen Gulutzan and Brian Wiseman will remain with the team.
Tippett, 60, was in his third year as head coach of Edmonton and had thus far put up a 95-62-14 record. While that doesn’t look bad overall, the 23-18-3 mark this season just hasn’t been good enough for a team led by Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The team has struggled to defend, has had a carousel of inconsistency in net, and still doesn’t have the secondary scoring required to contend for the Stanley Cup. While a lot of that is due to poor roster construction, Tippett will pay the price after some of his deployment concerns.
Mike Smith started both ends of a back-to-back over the last two days, despite him just coming back off an injury recently. He lost both, allowing four goals in each, and now has an .890 save percentage on the season. Smith has been connected to Tippett for years, and hasn’t been able to play to the level he showed last season.
Notably, the veteran coach’s contract expired at the end of the season anyway, one that was unlikely to be renewed given the way the Oilers have performed this year.
Woodcroft comes in as a fresh face, having never been a head coach at the NHL level. He has been in charge of the Condors since 2018 and previously served as an assistant with the Oilers and Sharks, but those aren’t the most interesting assignments on his resume. It’s the years he spent with the Detroit Red Wings that stick out here given he’s now being promoted by Holland. Woodcroft was a video coach with the Red Wings right after his playing career came to an end, and comes from that coaching tree that spawned Todd McLellan, who eventually brought him to San Jose and then Edmonton.
This is the first time that Holland has fired a coach in the NHL, something he has been vehemently against in the past. At a press conference earlier this year, he suggested that dismissing Tippett wouldn’t be the answer and that the Oilers couldn’t “keep whipping through coaches” to try and solve the problem. Well, they are now on the seventh coach since the 2012-13 lockout, as Woodcroft will follow Tippett, Ken Hitchcock, McLellan, Todd Nelson, Dallas Eakins, and Ralph Krueger trying to get the best out of a frustrating lineup.
I don’t watch enough Oilers games to know how big of a problem he was in this mess, but from afar it pretty clearly looks like the front office is the bigger issue. Even if he wasn’t a great fit, I cant blame him too much for the defensive unit he was given which would almost definitely help contribute to the poor goaltending.
He is not a players coach so I think players gave up on him…losing back to back didn’t help either…Babcock or torts would be my pick to replace him..
Babcock has done nothing since leaving Detroit.
Babcock and Torts are players coaches???
Franzen has claimed ptsd from babs, and Commadore can’t go a day without cursing babs. Their not played coaches
I’m officially rooting against Edmonton. There is a fundamental, core issue here – the Oilers keep addressing the symptoms, not the cause. This franchise is rotten from the head down. It’s not 1985 anymore, kids.
Cocaine is a helluva drug
You cannot get rid of the owner, or higher management. It is what it is.
KAR, you should work for the Oilers’ front office – you’d fit-right-in with those shrugging shoulders. Something can always be done – always.
@30 Parks – Ok. Go park your “freedom convoy” in front of Katz’s house and see how that goes. Wow. I am not “shrugging my shoulders”, it is this thing called reality. Not fun, but deal with it.
What the hell are you talking about, Kar? Either double your dose or break those pills in half, son. Your dosage is off.
Serious Apologies as I have become reactionary… I am tired of the what seems obvious which is “get rid of the owner”
Ok. So your suggestion is getting rid of the Owner. The person who Owns the team.
How does anyone hope to make that happen?
It is never going to happen.
As an Oilers fan the best thing to do is just hope Katz sells.
He’s the scapegoat. Holland is just the latest in a long line of awful Oiler GM’s. He, and whoever hired him, need to go.
brucenewton, Bob Nicholson “Mr. Hockey Canada” is Hollands boss and is more incompetent than Holland…the Oilers owner needs to come out of hibernation, clean house and realize that he is an owner and responsible for this tire fire the last 11 years!! its an embarassement to an Oiler franchise that had some of the best players in the 80s
@wright1970 – the LAST THING THE OILERS NEED IS MORE KATZ.
All caps because I am yelling this. Katz was the issue for the longest time. He’s an owner who likes to hang out with old Oilers greats. He would make players hang out with his carrot-top child. He’s awful all around.
Now that he is silent, we are seeing other management issues. Potentially.
Honestly at this point, I don’t even know what the bad mojo is, but it is there.
Tippett isn’t perfect but he’s done an overall good job in all of his coaching stops including this one. He simply didn’t have enough to work with this year, or at least not the right pieces to work with. Besides I hate I when a coach who I remember liking as a player gets fired.
Not a players’ coach??!! The Coyotes’ players loved Tippett, and they played hard for him every night when he was given the talent. Those teams also had great goaltending and dressing room leadership with Shane Doan and other vets — which may be another of the problems in Edmonton?
Tippett was a great, not good, coach in both Dallas and Phoenix, but suddenly can’t coach in Edmonton? Not buying it.
It was hardly like predicting the lotto numbers, but I said over and over before the season that entering this year with that tandem was “malfeasance”. That’s Holland’s fault.
And seriously…IF you are going to fire your coach, stop just hiring whatever schmuck happens to be standing the closest who will do it for the cheapest. Hire a real coach. A coach worthy of two of the best players on Earth.
Then get them the goalie you should have already gotten.
Have an actual freaking plan.
lol there maybe a short bump . Is new coach going to stay healthy and play goal. It is time to start when does conor mcdavid time to move on clock start.
It’s hard to believe Tipp couldn’t get his “push on a rope/zero-to-minus 1” schemes to work in today’s NHL. It’s true that it is not his fault the roster isn’t well constructed, but Chiarelli really jammed them up, and Ken Holland has been cap-constrained at housecleaning. He can’t get rid of Koskinen, without severely overpaying, and it may be true of other contracts, as well. He may bear significant responsibility in not getting anything done, though. That rule of GM-ing is “you need a willing trade partner” is glaring here now. He may want to do a lot, but the cap crap hamstrings him, and he hasn’t adjusted well on how you have to operate with it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Katz lets others go at the end of the year, too.
Show me a good coach and I’ll show you a good goaltender.
Holland should have traded for Kuemper last summer before Colorado beat him to the punch. He could have got it done for a first-rounder and a RH defensive prospect like Bromberg or Bouchard.
Oilers will never win squat as long as Ken Holland is at the helm. The dude was a hasbeen that ruined the Red Wings his last five years there. Edmonton will go nowhere as long as he is making the decisions.
I am not a Holland defender. But what I heard is he handed out those contracts based on ownership “advice” with Detroit.
Tippet should’ve been axed after he threw Koskinen under the bus… his time in Edmonton= not his best work. adios, Dave
You have to implement a game plan that works with the team you have. The Oilers are built to run and gun but Tippett is not that kind of coach.
The 1980’s are over. For decades that has been the Edmonton ideology and how well has that worked… it has not. They might now have some run and gun players, but lack the Paul Coffee and Gran Fuhr to pull it off. No Goaltending which is the final line of defense, that is the main issue. Look at the most recent Blackhawks game.
Tampa has speed/scoring, and they have goaltending and enough defense to keep the puck out. Edmonton does not have the defense (yet) and they definitely do not have the goaltending.
This right here, let’s just use the preds for an example (easy being my main team) they always were built around Defence years ago when Trotz was running the show, then Lavioulette was brought in which he’s a good offensive coach but not the best defensive coach in the world, the preds were a good fit at first but as the years progressed they became much more defensive then turned to Hynes (Defensive coach) better fit, looking now I see that the oil need to find a coach that knows how to coach that run and gun style of play and knows how to show those Dmen how to defend in that style of system, another issue as stated is they do not have the cap space or the players to make many moves being handcuffed by the cap, so Holland cannot make moves to fit the old coach so something had to give ie: Tippett being fired
@Donovan… With Tippet I believe his main error was putting too much time/weight on the main players. Woodcroft balanced out ice time and it might work out well. We shall see, but it was one of my main issues with Tippet and previous coaches. They just replied on the stars, and then left the rest to rust. We shall see. I’m not a coach, but you can’t let 50% of your team chill and then be effective.
@KAR 120C – Florida Panthers. Goaltending iffy and their D is about at the same level as the Oilers. They play to their strength and outscore their opponents. The only way this current Oilers team can win is to let their star players loose. They’re not winning many 2-1 games as currently constructed.
@Gbear – Care to revise that comment based on recent Ice Time and positive results?