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The Oilers are taking on the personality of their head coach
Edmonton Oilers Kris Knoblauch
Photo credit: Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports
Michael Menzies
Nov 28, 2025, 14:00 ESTUpdated: Nov 28, 2025, 12:34 EST
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Let me start this by saying I’m not calling for Kris Knoblauch’s head. 
I have a gripe with the head coach that’s been gnawing at me for a while. It isn’t the biggest issue with the Oilers right now. *ahem something something goaltending and the team can’t defend aheeem* 
It’s not even the systems debate and Knoblauch’s fib this week. 
Let’s talk about Knoblauch, the politician and public communicator, or, as I’ve billed him, “The Librarian.”
Here’s the head coach after the Dallas loss on Tuesday. 
This cannot be the demeanour of a head coach who got shellacked 8-3 in an embarrassing effort on home ice (and played the last eight of nine periods at home atrociously). 
Scroll through this video on mute, and you would think this was a librarian rattling off Dewey Decimal System codes, not a man who has watched his team emotionally no-show for the umpteenth time. 
“Well… We made some mistakes… But we’re learn from them… Nancy Drew? That’s under 364.12…”
Kris Knoblauch should be commended for his past poise as a young coach. That is overall a strength. But there are times for poise and times for emotion, to lean on the gas pedal. I’m dying for an honest thought and, more importantly, some emotion.
Not a Tortsian ass chewing or public humiliation, but simply some emotion connected to his voice. 
Nor is this an every time, all the time thing. That doesn’t work. But after another lifeless effort, Tuesday seemed like the perfect occasion to send a message. 

Who will bring the life?

Instead, like usual, every answer is long considered, each word filtered, avoiding saying anything that could be vaguely seen as media fodder or bulletin board material. 
Most of the time, as a coach, that’s a good thing. A steady hand. But the team is morphing into this laissez-faire, “docile” as Ryan Rishaug has put it, flat group. Dare I say, the Oilers have been an emotionally lifeless team in an alarming percentage of their games. 
I fear the Edmonton Oilers have taken on the personality of the coach, and that is part of the reason they lack the emotional heartbeat. (The deletion of Corey Perry is sorely missed, too.) 
I’d love Knoblauch to come out in a postgame presser and give us the emotion of a game. I’d like the thoughts he’s thinking to be connected to the words he’s saying. 
In this sense, I believe him when he says that the coaches “have to do a better job.”
Maybe the first few times your team is “flat”, you go librarian mode. No big deal, it happens. Then it happens again. Okay… And again…

It’s a trend

This was the second major blowout at home in the last three, measuring sticks vs the West’s best, which makes them appear that their “gap” is as big as the North Saskatchewan. 
And no, I’m not saying he needs to scream, he needs to slander guys publicly, or any of that. But you should get some sense in a postgame interview of how the coach feels. You get none of that. 
Doing play-by-play, I’ve done a few hundred live on-air postgame interviews with junior coaches. I’ve never heard a coach so dispassionate after a blowout loss. 
I’m sure it’s frustrating to many an Oilers fan, pissed as they should be for spending ~$200 a ticket, that this is the demeanour of the man who has a role to play in the team coming out “flat.” 
And that also goes for the leadership group because this has been a trend throughout the McDrai era. McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nurse shouldn’t be let off the hook here, either. 

The Detroit incident

The most revealing bit of Oilers paywalled content this season was Knoblauch raising his voice in the room during the loss to the Red Wings in October. 
I understand there’s a public and private side to the man. I understand how a calm presence in turbulent times is a net benefit. This team has severe on-ice problems. Major personnel issues, especially in the net. Overall team defence seems as easy as reading Mandarin a third of the time. 
At their worst, they appear disinterested in providing the minimum effort and competitiveness required to participate in an NHL game. And that’s averaging once to twice a week right now. 
We understand the reasons why: the fatigue of back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals, and the strain of losing them both. 
That isn’t going to relent, as the team will travel further than any team in the NHL in a truncated Olympic schedule. 
But these home game no-shows, after days off? The sixth or seventh total game unready to go? When will these reasons require solutions? 
That strained Knoblauch dressing room “stepdad yelling at the kids to put away the toys” voice, and the dispassionate librarian of postgame pressers need to become more closely aligned. 

What next?

The Oilers appear like a team on a collision course with a major move. Historically, with Edmonton, that’s a coaching move, but the goaltending should take the bullet here, because it’s bleeding into their collective psyche. 
I’m not minimizing the tactics and strategy of the Oilers game. But to my eye, we have a locker-room/personnel/psychological/emotional issue here.
No NHL team can play 82 games dispassionately. No NHL team can play all 82 games passionately. But the percentage of no-shows emotionally needs to crater, and the points in the standings will improve, because this team isn’t good enough right now to win games in a business-like, get-in and get-out way.
So the coach, as a leader, and the ones wearing letters in the room, need to find another emotional well to draw from. 

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