The NHL’s coaching carousel is spinning faster than ever, with many teams changing coaches this summer. But how do the league’s 32 coaches measure up to one another? That’s the focus of this series, ranking the 32 coaches. We’re starting off ranking NHL coaches No. 32-through-27
Video Transcript
Focus in on the conversation of since 2015, the Oilers have had six coaches, once they name this new one
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Is that too much change for a team?
That’s a lot of change
My first thought was when the NHL put out its statement, I, I just thought it was kinda funny how the subtext was it’s not illegal to be a terrible person
You know?
It’s like, “We can’t, we can’t stop him for just- Right you know, being mean.”
it, it’s also interesting to me ’cause if I’m not mistaken, he’s tied in Stanley Cup rings with Craig Berube, right?
Like, one each
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
With two more, but he also has two final losses
Sure.
One with Anaheim and another with So does, I mean, Chris Knuble has two final losses in a row and, he got fired the year after
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That’s standard
So it’s gonna be really interesting to see if he’s actually the answer
I mean, this is a guy that coached Nick Lidstrom for years and only got one cup out of it
He won a couple of Olympic golds with two of the best rosters possible
So it’s gonna be interesting
And a- and again, we’ve talked about this before, like what does this mean for the younger players on the Oilers?
Like, it, has Mike Babcock learned that you can’t pick on people that don’t have power?
Yeah.
Or is he just gonna be the same and it becomes a terrible year for the trainers, and the equipment managers, and everybody else that’s not Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl
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That’s gonna be the very interesting thing, and, you know, what it means to the culture remains to be seen
Having said that, you know, Katie, you’re right, like, they can’t keep doing the revolving door of coaches
I just finished writing a huge feature- for the Champions issue about Taylor Hall, now a Stanley Cup winner in Carolina
Yeah.
And as we all remember, he began his career in Edmonton where he had six coaches in six seasons
At one point there was three in one year
Yeah.
And, you know, that was a mess
They had no leadership
They had no culture
It took drafting Draisaitl and McDavid a few years later for them to really get on track
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So, you know what?
If, if Babcock’s your guy, then, like, you gotta stick with him for at least, like, three, four seasons
And, and really you don’t even have that long because, yeah, as, as we’ve been pointing out, like, McDavid’s on the clock here, right, with that contract
Yeah.
So, you know, y- if you’re an Edmonton Oilers fan, you just have to hope that it all kinda comes together really quickly
