The Edmonton Oilers held their end-of-season interviews after failing to win one playoff round, on the heels of back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Finals. It was a day filled with difficult conversations and injury updates. Notably, both Connor McDavid and Jason Dickinson were revealed to be playing through foot fractures, head coach Kris Knoblauch told Sportsnet’s Mark Spector. Dickinson scored two goals in the opening game of the first round before missing the next two games with injury. He returned for the final three games of the series and added one assist.
McDavid played through all six postseason games but didn’t neccesarily appear like his usual self. He scored only one goal and six points. It was rare that he broke away with top-end speed or dominated offense – instead leaving those roles to Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard, and Vasily Podkolzin who led the Oilers in playoff scoring. A fracture is reasonable explanation for those struggles and will now set both McDavid and Dickinson on the course of recovery for at least part of the summer. Knoblauch did not mention specifics for either player’s recovery.
Other notes out of Edmonton:
- Star winger Draisaitl was vocal about the team’s struggles, saying that he feels the organization took a step backwards per NHL.com’s Derek Van Diest. Their result at the end of the year made that backwards step evident enough – but McDavid echoed his teammate’s comments in his own interview. Draisaitl went on to speak to how big of a role Edmonton’s depth players filled on their run to the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals, even naming Ryan McLeod, Warren Foegele, Vincent Desharnais, and Cody Ceci. It seems the Oilers’ charge through the summer will be replicating that difference-making depth talent, if they want to appease their best players ahead of another playoff heave next season.
- No indication was made regarding Knoblauch’s future with in the Oilers head coach role through the team’s final interviews. General manager Stan Bowman said the organization will take their time to evaluate things before confirming if Knoblauch would be back per TSN’s Ryan Rishaug. Bowman went on to add that all aspects of the team will likely be evaluated, including his own role, after their disappointing end. Those decisions will give the Oilers a lot to consider in a small window before the NHL Draft in June and free agency in July.
Maybe whoever’s the GM can take another swing at acquiring a goalie. Maybe one of the Wild’s tenders finally moves. Or see what it would take to get Woll out of Toronto. They can’t afford to mess around anymore on third-tier, washed up guys.
I’m curious about the wild’s goalie goldmine. They should be able to leverage that for strong returns.
How can they afford Gustavsson? I skimmed some Oilers blogs and some of their fans seem to think it would cost Savoie + spare parts, which is likely about all they can offer but nowhere near what he would actually cost
One of the Wild goalies is going to Toronto and other pieces for Austin Matthews Billy G add Matthews Became pretty close lately
Come on how dose Bowman keep his job ? Seriously Tristan Jarry are you kidding me. Two more years to pay this clown while still paying Hollands goalie mistake. They have had McDaivid and Dri over 10 years . What a joke of an organization…….
They can have Ceci back!
You hired Stan Bowman. Did you really expect to move forward? That was a really bad idea. Go to the box, 2 minutes, be ashamed!
Stan Nepotism Bowman will fire Knoblauch as the scapegoat.
Bowman had a horrendous off-season. He’s going to make them worse the longer he’s there
It was obvious McD was hurt but a broken bone in his foot? Can’t be that bad, he’s walking around fine without a boot or crutches.
Really? You actually believe that walking and skating against NHL players are the same thing? Seems that you have never put on a pair of skates.
Oh man, yeah they are not the same thing. Like McD said (or maybe his coach) it was the starting and stopping that was the tough part. Exploding from a standstill off a faceoff or turning the skates for a hockey stop puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the foot. Not to mention the risk of blocking a shot with your skate.
I can imagine the level of pain he was trying to manage was immense.
Where did anyone come up with this theory that Stan Bowman was a good GM?
Stan was hired by the Hawks as a favor to his father who was a consultant for the Hawks at that time. Stan was brought in and given a job to be the teams salary cap manager. A job that his Notre Dame education as an accountant was something they thought he could handle. As a favor to his dad Scotty, they also gave him a title of assistant GM. Dale Tallon was responsible for building the teams that won the three cups. Stan Bowman got the credit for those three cups but the only thing he did was make bad decisions and bad trades that ruined their very good farm system at the time. I wouldn’t let Stan Bowman build me a doghouse, he doesn’t know squat about hockey. Right now he is one of the worst Gms in the Nhl. Their is a couple books out their that proves what I’m writing.
You’re so right about this. I was on this platform when the oilers hired Bowman and tried to tell oilers fans that it’s a mistake to hire this guy and got attacked because “he was a 3 time Stanley cup champion.” Dale Tallon, not Bowman was the guy who built those cup winners.
Bowman has repeated what he did with the Hawks. He runs up payroll on a hand full of players to the point you have no cap space. Then doesn’t resign or trades away the very depth players they need to be cup contenders. This is just the beginning of the damage Stan Bowman wlill cause there.