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Sunday Scramble: Different ownership styles can win championships. Will Daryl Katz’s?
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Michael Menzies
Jun 14, 2026, 17:00 EDTUpdated: Jun 14, 2026, 16:46 EDT
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Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz watches the much-maligned owner of the New York Knicks, James Dolan, win an NBA championship on Saturday night. Perhaps even with tears in his eyes.
The former “worst owner in all of sports” was handed the Larry O’Brien Trophy — the worst tradition in American sports, the owners receiving the trophy first — and was overwhelmed with emotion.
His franchise had finally won a title despite him.
But to Dolan’s credit, there is something within his control that led to their success, something uncharacteristic for one of the most hated men in New York since taking over the MSG empire in 1999: He limited his impact on basketball operations.
He found a competent person to mastermind the franchise in Leon Rose and allowed him to build the team in his vision. In a soft conference, the Knicks mustered one of the most bizarre elite runs in NBA playoff history, going 16-3 and ending a 56-year drought. (Don’t get any ideas, Toronto).
This championship helps Febreze the generational stink off of Dolan’s blazer, although New York Rangers fans might not be so forgiving yet.
Winning in professional sports with poor ownership is nearly impossible to overcome. In the first twenty-year period of Dolan’s reign, the Knicks toiled with the worst record in the NBA. You can’t fire the owner, but you can hope he takes his hand off the wheel.
And wouldn’t you know it, it worked. Dolan grew up, maybe not a Harrison Katz-like growth spurt between first overall draft picks, but enough. He may have learned which conversations are best to stay out of.
Jun 13, 2026; San Antonio, Texas, USA; New York Knicks owner James Dolan and the players celebrate after defeating the San Antonio Spurs during game five of the 2026 NBA Finals at Frost Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

Katz is driving decisions

Amongst the billionaire class, owning a sports franchise is like a six-year-old receiving a motorized Cadillac. It’s the best toy going, and many owners have stakes in franchises across several leagues.  
Daryl Katz can run the Edmonton Oilers however he likes, but his level of involvement is concerning to fans who just want to see their team look competent. Reports are that he was vocal in firing coach Kris Knoblauch. Reports are that he was the initial driver of the Mike Babcock pursuit.
Reports are that it’s the Summer of Daryl. Serenity now!
He is the focal point of the off-season, as I pondered he would be a month ago. He will not stand idly by with the high-stakes future of his franchise hanging in the balance, a multi-billion dollar commodity, that has only one measure of success left to accomplish at this moment – win the Stanley Cup.
That’s his prerogative, and it doesn’t matter what a guy in a basement suite writes about him.
My comment here is not about whether firing Knoblauch was a good idea, whether it was a good idea to leak the Bruce Cassidy information (believed by Elliotte Friedman that it did stem from Edmonton, but not from the front office), or whether the juice is worth the squeeze with Mike Babcock. Fortune could favour the bold, but rarely on a whim. 
But there is a clumsiness to the Oilers’ business that teams rarely overcome to win. The same type of clumsiness and meddling that plagued the on-ice product during the first decade of Katz’s reign seems to be returning.
If he’s driving these decisions, what process does he use to arrive at his conclusions?
General manager Stan Bowman’s name is either so protected in the media that he isn’t attached to the Babcock news, or it’s because he’s not as involved as a GM typically is in hiring or firing a coach. Reading media reports, his name is an afterthought in the Babcock proceedings. That’s not a good sign.
Credit Katz for spending on his hockey team and his desire to win. By no means is he the worst owner in the NHL. The front office promotions to bolster the analytics and pro scouting departments of the organization ought to be good. Michael Parkatti, now vice-president of analytics and technology, is talked about like a rising star. 
But it’s easy to undercut your franchise’s good moves quickly as an owner. Just like what coaches preach, it’s the process that matters. It’s the process that leads to winning.
Although if it can happen for Dolan, who watched his top player Jalen Brunson leave $100 million on the table in free agency to re-sign — just like Connor McDavid left millions on the table — then it can happen for Katz, too.
There are many roster decisions to get right in the coming weeks. But what about the influence from the top floor of the elevator?

Dundon’s Canes buck tradition

To be fair, hands-off ownership isn’t the only way to win. A heavy-handed owner could be a Stanley Cup champion tonight if the Carolina Hurricanes win, and also go 16-3 through the playoffs.
Tom Dundon gets into the nitty-gritty of how his organization runs, and his calculated investments and brash style may achieve the ultimate dividend. 
He’s been called cheap, at least initially. Long-time employees voluntarily left upon Dundon’s arrival, and many others were let go. Commissioner Gary Bettman called him a “disruptor.”
While he tries replicating this style with the Portland Trail Blazers to mixed results, in the non-traditional hockey market of Carolina, Sunday night could be the highest form of vindication for his way, finding innovative ways to gain an edge in the analytics department, and making his dollar stretch further in a tough salary cap world.
Edmonton ex-pat Tyler Dellow, an early sign of Oiler innovation that ended poorly, could be a ring-receiver too.
“You have somebody who’s coming in and asking in every area: ‘Why are you doing it this way? Are you sure that’s the right way?’” said Eric Tulsky, now general manager, then the Hurricanes’ manager of hockey analytics, in a story in The Athletic before the Final began.
“And the answer — ‘I’ve been doing this for 15 years. Trust me. I know.’ — didn’t fly with him. He wanted you to convince him. And that’s scary for someone who’s been doing it for 15 years and feels like they know it and they’re being challenged.”  
Those who are interested in this aspect of how the Canes run, or how winning hockey teams conduct their business, you’d be well-served to read Craig Custance’s great book The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams.
It’s a behind-the-scenes look at organizational philosophies across the league, how contenders were built, which trades were and weren’t made.
For example, George McPhee describes his teardown rebuild with Washington in 2003-04 where he’d already dealt multiple roster staples, but decided to hang onto Olaf Kolzig, despite Colorado offering two first-round picks to fill the Patrick Roy-shaped hole in their crease. After the Avs’ spending for Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya that off-season, one of the greatest rosters assembled on paper failed to move past the second round.
My takeaway is that there are different ways to win, different values that owners and general managers hold which lead to success. And yet, there are many similarities.
Each organization has a way of doing things. There is a process. That isn’t clear for the Edmonton Oilers. 
Lou Lamoriello values loyalty above all else, for example, despite being as ruthless to head coaches as any other successful manager in NHL history. Insert Larry Robinson for Robbie Ftorek 72 games into a season in 2000, add another ring on his finger. But it’s also a man who helped shape Providence’s entire athletics department because there were universal principles behind his decisions. Talk to Billy Donovan or Rick Pitino about his influence. 
There were also front offices interviewed in the book who had yet to win the Stanley Cup, like Dundon was for Carolina, and Kyle Dubas, then in Toronto.
You could mention Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, who own the Colorado Avalanche, Los Angeles Rams, Denver Nuggets, and shares in Arsenal of the Premier League. Their teams share an “all-in” philosophy, isolating the years to push their chips in, evidenced by the Avs’ trades this year, the Rams trading for all-time great passrusher Myles Garrett, and Arsenal’s spending to win the Prem in recent months. 
There are different approaches.
This book came out in October 2024, by the way. There was no chapter on the Oilers’ way of doing things.
Apr 2, 2026; Portland, Oregon, USA; Tom Dundon, the new owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, before a game between the Portland Trail Blazers and the New Orleans Pelicans at Moda Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images

‘Who’s going to keep Mike in check?’

I’ve given my thoughts elsewhere on Babcock’s potential hiring. I thought the timing was strange. The process is concerning. The ability to get players from outside the organization to sign or waive a no-trade clause, or how the 10 pending free agents feel about Babcock (none of which have been re-signed so far), could be concerning.
His coaching ability as one of the greats at X’s and O’s is enticing. He should have the right to work.
But at what cost for the Edmonton Oilers?
The feeling out there is the NHL wants a “quick investigation,” two words you don’t often see used together in the league. Maybe not as quick as a public final word on Bruce Cassidy would take, but quick I guess. What these “significant” additional claims are, reported by Frank Seravalli, will be found out, if they exist at all, or whether they’re worthy of formal league sanctioning.
All we know is they scared Columbus three years ago.
John Shannon is a regular guest on Oilers Now with Bob Stauffer. He gave a thoughtful opinion during his appearance on Tuesday that summarized the situation best: 
“We’ve all had experiences with Mike. There are times that Mike can be overly aggressive, and I think that’s what people are trying to address right now. The one thing that I think has to come out of this, if Mike is allowed to pursue the coaching job in Edmonton, I don’t think “come clean” is the right answer, but Mike has to be transparent about what he’s done and how he will fix it. Perhaps he will be better for it, and hockey will be better for it.
“At this point, I think there’s enough pressure on the team and on the league and on Mike to say, ‘Okay, Mike, you better be open to criticism, you better be open to dealing with this, because the next step is that if you are allowed to coach, you will be held to a higher standard.’
“Mike actually is a good person, but something happens to Mike Babcock when he gets authority. Something happens, a switch gets flicked, and then Mike becomes dictatorial. The question becomes for me, if you’re looking at this organization and what obviously the owner wants and what the players want in this scenario: Who is going to keep Mike in check?
“Who is going to be able to say, ‘Hey, Mike, you know what, you’re getting close to the line, you’re getting close to the line.’ And then, more importantly, and this is something I think Mike will have to address, is how will Mike react to criticism like that? Because we’ve all been around him in these scenarios, and Mike has not taken criticism well. Mike pushes back, and quite frankly, Mike becomes a hardass.
“If he gets this job, Mike Babcock has to be a better person, has to be a better person than he has been in previous situations in the National Hockey League, and the question will be, who is going to make him in the Edmonton Oilers? Who is going to make him a better person?
“He can actually really take a great situation and make people feel positive. He has it in his toolbox to do that. The other aspect, and in following up on this with a few people, is we know he’s not going to have an issue with Connor McDavid. He’s not going to have an issue with Leon or Zach, but what about Matt Savoie? Mike tends to bully and intimidate people down the food chain. He does. How does he fix that? How does he make that better?
“I’m a second-chance guy. I believe second, third, fourth, fifth chances, because I’ve had plenty of them, and I hope I’ve taken advantage of them properly…but this is 2026. How you coached in 1981 is different than how you coach in 2026. The game has changed that part. Can Mike coach not just the superstars, but for the regular player in 2026?”
Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and co-host of PreGaming and Oilersnation After Dark. He’s also been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years of news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, Menzies collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4. 

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