Connor McDavid wields more power than Oilers want to admit

Connor McDavid says he found out about Jay Woodcroft's dismissal like everyone else but it's hard to believe the Oilers captain had no input in the hiring of Kris Knoblauch, his coach in junior hockey, as new bench boss in Edmonton.

Video Transcript

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I don't like that Holland and Jeff Jackson, Connor McDavid's former agent now turned CEO of Hockey Operations, they had this little thing during the press conference where it seemed as if one person saying that players were consulted, and someone else is saying that they weren't consulted.

And then you see Connor McDavid after the fact saying, hey, like, I woke up to this news and figured out just like everyone else. I mean, everyone seems to be taking that side and saying that he's not lying. Isn't that bad? Like, you have your guy in the front office, and he doesn't tell you that this is happening? Isn't this just-- that doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem like that's good. It just makes it look even more of a mess.

We're talking about optics here. You mentioned optics, Arun. That doesn't look like an organization that has everything put together. And where it could easily be interpreted as, oh, well Connor's got his guy and the pressure's going to be on him, and you could start making comparisons to a certain player who may exercise his power to get his way, which I don't think is wrong.

ARUN SRINIVASAN: That's precisely. I mean, how else could it be interpreted optically?

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Absolutely. It absolutely should be interpreted that way. And I mean LeBron James, for those who haven't caught on. But instead, it just looks like this team just found a way to pull a 180 without Connor. But also, like, you mean to tell me you had no idea that a coach that you have a relationship with was going to come in? Like, I mean, that's such an interesting thing for me.

I mean, Avry, again, if you have more contact with this, please add it, but that doesn't make sense to me the way the Edmonton Oilers went about it where it seemed like Ken Hall was trying to say one thing, and Jeff Jackson's going at it another way. How could the players not be consulted on this? That doesn't make any sense to me.

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: Yeah. No. I heard that, and there's a part of me that just seems very skeptical that a player or two, like Connor Leon, had no idea. Again, it seemed weird that they-- I won't say they had no input, but that there was no level of even just passing knowledge it might happen. But that presser involving Holland and Jeff Jackson, to me, I rewatched it, and it just looked like a full-on-- it looked like mayhem. Again, with Holland saying one thing and Jackson saying another thing, and then Paul Coffey straight admitting that he didn't want to be a coach. And he will be a coach on the bench with Oilers team with Chris Knoblauch while he's still a special advisor to Daryl Case. The whole situation is probably one of the more absurd ones in all of hockey.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: It doesn't make any sense to me. And they're not doing this on a team with a bunch of young players, and everyone's trying to get themselves in order, and maybe they'll be a contender in four or five years. You know what we're going to talk about next summer '24? Draisaitl is going to resign with this team. You know what we're going to talk about in 2025? What's Connor McDavid's future? Like, they need to get their act together. That's as best as I could say with the Edmonton Oilers. They need to get their act together. If anyone else wants to wrap this up and say something, please add that. But that's my that's my two cents on this.

NICK ASHBOURNE: I think they're bending over backwards to try and make it seem like Connor McDavid hasn't exerted his power to handpick his head coach because they think that that's a bad look. And arguably, it is a bad look, but there's hard power.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I don't think it is.

NICK ASHBOURNE: You don't think it is? I don't know. I mean, it's definitely uncommon in the NHL, right? Like, we don't see this very often where a star player is essentially saying this is my guy, this is my coach. Whether that's right or wrong, whether it should be more like the NBA, the history isn't really there for that. And so, I think that they're reluctant to make that seem like that's what happened, but it's his junior coach. It's a guy who has a pretty thin resume outside of doing that.

So, like, the fact that he's McDavid's coach is why he has this job. Like, if there's another open job, this is not the guy other teams are going to pick, right? Like, he is specific to this situation. That's unavoidable. And so, like, it almost doesn't matter. Like, did Connor McDavid go to them and say this is the guy I want? Or is the fact they're terrified of Connor McDavid and him being unhappy and him leaving being the motivation for doing this, even if he didn't explicitly ask? Either way, it's Connor McDavid's power. It's just a different route to the end result.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I can't speak to Chris Knoblauch's credentials. I can't speak to his resume. There are people who have commended him for the job that he's been able to do in the Rangers organization with the AHL. But for me, and maybe it is because I'm used to seeing this in the NBA, how do you not give Connor McDavid, and even Leon Draisaitl to this effect, how do you not give those two players some measure of power in your organization?

I'm not saying you give them full-on authority where they're able to be GM's and they're able to just make trades out of nowhere and run the salary cap, but I don't understand how you have a situation you are in right now where it is, what, DEFCON 1? I tried to make DEFCON 5 references last week, and people were like, no, it's actually the other way.

You are in a situation that's very dire. You need to win games. You need to figure out a way to have your two superstar players stay in the fold long term and keep whatever window you have open to winning a Stanley Cup. How do you not consult those two players in order to get to that point? I don't think it's wrong. I don't think-- if people think it's bad optics for them to have a say in something like, this or full-on handpick their guy, I disagree with that.

I think if you're the Edmonton Oilers and look at that situation, that's what you have to do. You have to at least give them some say if you want to give them any hope of staying and not ruining the last few years of your franchise, or having everything be all for nothing. That's how I see it. Like, that's just really bizarre that it just comes across the way that it came across. And the Oilers were already a mess. Look even more like a mess. It's just one week we're talking about the Ottawa Senators being a mess, and now it's the Edmonton Oilers who get to sit in the seat.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I agree with you. If I were running the team, I would absolutely consult the players. But clearly, the organization does not want the public to think that that's what they've done when it seems fairly likely that they have at some level.