Kris Knoblauch may be on the hot seat in Edmonton

It has been a tumultuous year for the Edmonton Oilers, who appear poised to back into a playoff spot thanks to a brutal down year for the entire Pacific Division, rather than because of their own strong performance.

For head coach Kris Knoblauch and his job security, eyebrows were raised when superstar captain Connor McDavid went out of his way when speaking with reporters to praise Jon Cooper and the Tampa Bay Lightning for how well-coached and organized the team is.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by former NHL video coach Steve Peters to discuss why Edmonton’s struggles this season could cost Knoblauch his job.

Tyler Yaremchuk: That’s where Edmonton pops into the conversation. Is there a world based on what we’ve heard from Connor McDavid this year, after the last Cup Final, Leon Draisaitl before the Olympic break, like is there a world where you think Chris Knoblauch is still the Oilers’ head coach next season?

Steve Peters: I think he’s in trouble. We talked before the show about how much power and impact players have in coaching decisions today. 15, 20 years ago the coaches, they were in charge. It didn’t matter what the players said. It didn’t matter what the players wanted. Money has changed, power has changed, TV contracts have changed. Players run it now, and you can go into an exit meeting with their general manager, and if there’s enough guys that say, ‘Hey, Coach is the problem….’ If Conor McDavid goes into his exit meetings going, ‘Hey man, we really need to change our structure. We need to change the mood in the locker room,’ now that can’t survive, like, period. If Draisaitl and McDavid are against him, he cannot survive… It doesn’t really matter if the players aren’t happy, and so I think the playoff run is going to be incredibly important I think if they can find some magical formula to get them back at least to the Western Final, maybe not the Stanley Cup Final, but even the Western final, maybe he can survive this summer. But if this is a team that that struggles out of the gate in the first round and maybe is eliminated, I don’t know how Kris Knoblauch survives.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…