News Oilers Team Notes

[Edmonton Oilers]

Head coach Kris Knoblauch on his new coaching staff, adjustments to Oilers’ penalty kill, and more

Since taking over behind the bench on November 12, 2023, Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch has more combined regular-season and playoff wins than every coach in the NHL, except Paul Maurice.

Knoblauch and Maurice are tied with 123 wins, but it’s Maurice who has the upper hand where it counts most. His Panthers have beaten Knoblauch’s Oilers in back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals. Maurice ranks second all-time in NHL regular-season games coached at 1,930, while Knoblauch just wrapped up his second season and has only 151 regular-season games under his belt.

Maurice missed the playoffs his first three years as an NHL coach and didn’t win a playoff series until his seventh season. Maurice lost two Stanley Cup Finals before winning the Cup in his 26th year as a head coach. He’s a great example of perseverance in the coaching fraternity.

Knoblauch has no reason to feel ashamed for not winning. Disappointed, sure, but he’s had an incredible start to his NHL coaching career, and the Oilers will enter this season as one of, if not the favourite, in the Western Conference.

But success isn’t guaranteed, and Knoblauch is driven to take that final step and bring home the Stanley Cup.

His coaching staff will look much different this season. Glen Gulutzan, Paul Coffey, Dustin Schwartz, and David Pelletier are all out. In their place: Mark Stuart will run the defence, Paul McFarland takes over the power play, Peter Aubry steps in as goalie coach, and Conor Allen joins as the new skills coach. Allen’s role, in particular, will be bigger than some expected. More on that below.

I had Kris Knoblauch on my radio yesterday on Sports 1440 and on the Oilersnation YouTube, and we discussed many things, but one thing caught my attention: I asked Knoblauch about his new staff and how they might approach this season differently.

“The penalty kill is where we will have the biggest adjustments,” said Knoblauch. “As for a five-on-five play, we’re always looking at how we can get better, but overall, I think we’re going to have pretty much the same systems. It’s taken us to the Stanley Cup final twice, but there will be a little more emphasis on skill development to execute plays. We reduced one coach (three on the bench instead of four), but we added a more of a traditional skills coach. We will have a bit more focus on player development. We will have some young high prospects coming in, as you mentioned, with Savoie and Howard, and we want to help those guys, but also help the veteran players. They’re always looking to improve their game. There are always skills that you can work on, and we wanted a guy who was completely focused on that skill development or skill enhancement that can help all our players.”

Allen is the new skills coach, and his role will be bigger than we’ve seen before in the Oilers organization. There will be more practices based mainly on skill development.

“We will have that, and we’ll probably break up our traditional practices with skill developments, maybe at the beginning of practice or at the end to break it up,” said Knoblauch. “We’re very fortunate to have two ice sheets, so we can always do skills with a handful of players on one ice and then have them join our main practice immediately without losing any time with ice scrapes. We want to implement more of that this year. It’s something that’s very difficult to do in the NHL just because of the travel and the schedule and how many games you play, but I think it’s important.

“Our players spend so much time doing skill development over the summer, and then the regular season happens, and it’s (skill work) almost non-existent. I don’t think that’s right. I think we should be incorporating more of that in the regular season. It is a great plan right now, and hopefully, we can execute it during the season,” said Knoblauch.

It is a great plan. It makes a lot of sense. I’ve often found it odd how much time the organization has put into player development — which focuses more on young, drafted players and prospects, and many of them never make it to the NHL — while teams didn’t have the same focus on skill development with NHL players. I asked Knoblauch why he felt it was the right time to make the change.

“I think once players get to the NHL, it’s almost as if their development’s done, they’ve made it to the highest level, and let’s just let them play,” said Knoblauch. “I don’t think that’s right, and my time in junior hockey and in the American Hockey League, the emphasis was on development and getting these players better, and I think it’s important that we were doing that here. I think between my experience in the American Hockey League with Hartford, I thought we had a good program there with a lot of emphasis on player development, but also talking with Stan (Bowman), he had the exact same vision. So, it was really easy for us to work together and find a way for this to work. He and I went through the application process of finding good coaches to fill our entire bench and the skill development role, and we were very aligned on this position.”

Skill development practices are less taxing on players. And it can be very position-specific. Wingers can work on picking up pucks off the boards and making strong, smart plays in either the defensive or offensive zone. The forwards can work on quick touches in and around the net or tipping pucks, or quick, crisp give-and-gos. They could have sessions on edge work, making plays on their backhands, and not always focus on tactical drills. Defenceman can work on quick outlets, walking the blueline to create space, one-timers, and more. The options are endless, and not only will it sharpen their skills, but it will also likely lower the potential of being bored by running the same drills.

You can only break out so many times. Players like predictability and consistency, but if you have too much of it in practice, it can become tiresome. Knoblauch’s new approach should increase the “fun” factor but also improve their odds of burying more scoring chances. Last season at 5×5, Edmonton was first in shots on goal, second in high danger scoring chances, 13th in goals scored, and 27th in shooting percentage at 7.95%. The first two rankings are great. But the last two? Not so much.

In 2024 at 5×5, the Oilers were first in shots on goal and in high danger chances, third in goals scored, and 14th in SH%. Was last year a bit of bad luck? Possibly, but I’ve long argued that burying your chances is a skill. Hitting the pad or hitting the spot just above the pad to score is a difference of a few inches, and many factors lead to a player hitting, or missing, their spot (mainly time and space), but if you work on hitting those spots in practice, or getting the shot away half a second quicker, that could lead to more converted plays.

The Oilers are blessed with some highly skilled players, and keeping those skills sharp makes sense. I’m interested to see what skills the new Conor (Allen) will incorporate throughout the season.

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Source: https://oilersnation.com/news/edmon...ris-knoblauch-interview-new-staff-adjustments

 

[Edmonton Oilers]

Despite rumours, Oilers aren’t looking to sign prospect Nikita Yevseyev to entry-level contract this summer

Rumours that the Edmonton Oilers were working to sign prospect defenceman Nikita Yevseyev to an entry-level contract ahead of next season appear to be remaining just that.

A report from Elite Prospects had indicated that the two sides were in talks, but Oilersnation’s Jason Gregor reported Wednesday he heard “this will not be happening this off-season.”

Yevseyev came in as Oilersnation’s 20th ranked prospect last summer.

I’m hearing this will not happen this off-season. https://t.co/FccI1elmP2

— Jason Gregor (@JasonGregor) July 23, 2025

The 21-year-old has split time between the VHL and KHL in Russia since he was drafted, playing 47 VHL games, scoring two goals and 15 points, and 105 KHL games, scoring seven goals and 12 points.

While he may not be coming to North America for next season, there are still questions that remain about where he will play next. After playing 38 games last year for the KHL’s Ak Bars Kazan, he doesn’t have a contract heading into next season. There’s some level of concern there given his young age, the fact that he’s been fighting for ice-time in recent years, and that the KHL season begins in the first week of September.

Reviews from his past season were murky, as opined in the Oilersnation mid-season prospect rankings report, where it was written how questions still remain about the player.

“He’s a good, but not great prospect at this time, so I am uncertain whether the Oilers would make a play to have him come over,” Bruce Curlock wrote. “There is no question he has AHL size, skating and defending ability. However, it is simply too murky to get a strong read on this player at this time.

“The only encouraging sign is that Yevseyev is back playing 10 minutes per night in a 6/7 role with AK Bars in the KHL. The more games he can play down the stretch, the better for Oilers management to get an understanding of this player.”

The Oilers surely aren’t in any rush here, as they do hold Yevseyev’s NHL rights indefinitely. Even beyond that, there’s a logjam of defencemen for the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors heading into next season, with Josh Brown, Alec Regula and Beau Akey set to break in on the right-side, and Riley Stillman, Arto Leppanen and Damien Carfagna filling spots on the left-side.

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Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at [email protected].

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ARTICLE PRESENTED BY bet365​

Source: https://oilersnation.com/news/edmonton-oilers-arent-looking-sign-nikita-yevseyev

 

[Edmonton Oilers]

Real Life Podcast: Nation Gear history, Eli on the Ferris wheel, and AI-generated Tyler content

Thursday afternoon means a fresh episode of Real Life was recorded, edited, and is ready to help you wrap up your workweek. On today’s podcast, the guys discussed old Nation Gear designs, reality TV, Eli on the Ferris wheel, AI-generated content, and more.

The guys kicked off the Thursday episode of Real Life with a discussion about Nation Gear and whether Wanye and Baggedmilk have kept all of their old articles of clothing. After walking through some of the old designs, the conversation turned to how many hats everyone has and whether they wear them to death.

Changing gears, Wanye wanted to talk about Reality TV and a very special episode of Hoarders that lives rent-free in his mind. That led the guys to wonder if there is anything in their lives they love so much that could turn into an unreasonable obsession. As you’ll hear, everyone on the podcast is pretty boring apart from Wanye trying to adopt an all-day coffee routine that he heard a billionaire does daily.

From there, Eli talked about his time on the Ferris wheel at K-Days, after spending over 20+ hours there with Chris Sheetz as he pushed to set the world record for the most time cruising around. After spending so much time spinning around, Eli had a bunch of funny stories from his time cruising around for the record attempt. That said, Eli also broke the news that not every record attempt is what we think it is.

Finally, the guys wrapped up the Thursday episode of Real Life with a recap of the AI content Wanye made about Tyler over the last few weeks, and how we’re only allowed to use the images he made while Tyler is away on his honeymoon. Needless to say, the boys were having fun with an array of random topics that left Yaremchuk invariably uncomfortable.

Listen to the Thursday episode of Real Life below:

Subscribe to the Real Life Podcast for FREE on Spotify here, on Apple Podcasts here, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Source: https://oilersnation.com/news/real-...e-ferris-wheel-and-ai-generated-tyler-content