Paul Coffey is working for the Edmonton Oilers in an unnamed, senior role
By Zach Laing
1 year agoRumours have swirled around Paul Coffey and the Edmonton Oilers for a number of years.
He’s been seen travelling with the team in the last year or two, but his role has been kept under wraps. What we do know is that Coffey has worked for the team in the past. Hired in January 2018, he worked for the team as a skills coach for the remainder of that season, as well as the 2018-19 season as a whole.
It was short-lived, as when the club hired Dave Tippett, it was reported that Coffey would be parting ways with the team. Rumours of his return to the organization really picked up in March 2022 when Coffey travelled with the Oilers on a U.S. road trip before returning to Edmonton with the club.
At the time, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported there was nothing formal in place, “but I’m curious to see where this goes.”
Now, Coffey has opened up that he has been working in a role with the Oilers in an all-encompassing feature written by The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler.
Here’s some of what Wheeler wrote, and a quote from Coffey:
[Coffey] is also back in hockey, with a talked-about but shrouded-in-mystery new role with the Oilers. When he fielded my call, he was in between a 12-day trip to Normandy and Paris with a group of friends, lunch back in Toronto with Darryl Sittler and Tiger Williams, and a flight to meet the Oilers in New York for their three-game trip against the Devils, Islanders and Rangers.When I pressed him for specifics on his new role with the team (he previously worked for a time as a team consultant with the Coyotes, an assistant coach with Canada’s 2020 Spengler Cup team, the GM and head coach of the OJHL’s Jr. A Pickering Panthers, and the Oilers as a skills coach), he laughed.“Everybody wants to know,” he said between chuckles before caving. “I work directly with ownership. I work directly with Daryl (Katz). Wasn’t looking for a job but I’m happy to work. I absolutely love it. (It’s) a little bit bigger, senior position (I took) last year. It gets me back in the game and I find that as much as the game has changed, it’s still the same. It’s exciting for me. I get a high-level view of arguably one of the greatest players of all time (Connor McDavid). The coaches are awesome — very approachable on all fronts. And Kenny Holland’s an easy guy to work with. So I do that and then business interests I got a lot of cool things, a lot of stuff going on. So I’m busy on all fronts, which is great.”
The whole situation is curious, to say the least.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.
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