There is just one team still searching for a head coach for next season: the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Now entering their final stages of finding a replacement for Pascal Vincent, the team is reportedly set to bring ex-Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft to Ohio for an in-person interview, The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline reported last Sunday.
Woodcroft isn’t the only one heading there for a chat with president and general manager Don Waddell and company, however, as former Minnesota Wild bench boss Dean Evason is believed to be set to interview, as well.
“We’re only bringing in two,” Waddell said told Portzline. “I have a third (candidate) who’s kind of on hold right now, but we have the top two guys that we’d like to bring in in-person.
“This week is an important week for us coming up here. Training camp is essentially the third week in September. Do I want this to go into August? Not a chance. Now, whether we announce something (this) week or if it’s done early the following week … we’ll see how the schedules line up.”
The third candidate, Portzline added, is believed to be another former Oilers coach in Todd McLellan, who coached the club between 2015 and Nov. 2018.
Woodcroft has deep ties to McLellan too, as he came up as an assistant coach with the McLellan-led San Jose Sharks, and later with the Oilers. Woodcroft was given the bench of the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors ahead of the 2018-19 season, running the bench for three and a half seasons before being promoted to the Oilers, taking over from Dave Tippett.
The Oilers excelled under Woodcroft, going 26-9-3 and taking the team to the Western Conference Finals in 2021-22, falling to the Stanley Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche. In Woodcroft’s first full season in Edmonton in 2022-23, he helped the team achieve their first 50-win season since 1986-87, finishing the year as one of the best teams in the league. While they dispatched the Los Angeles Kings in six games in the first round of the playoffs, the Oilers would be eliminated by the eventual Stanley Cup-winning Vegas Golden Knights.
However, Woodcroft’s tenure in town would come to an abrupt end last November, fired after the team sputtered to a 3-9-1 start.
Even aside from the sluggish start and his firing, he goes down as one of the most successful regular season coaches in franchise history, with a 79-41-13 record and a .643 points percentage, ranking second behind only Kris Knoblauch — who replaced him — and above Glen Sather’s .613.
Woodcroft could prove to be a solid option for the Blue Jackets, with a penchant for working with young players and helping develop them. Columbus is a young team looking to rise up the ranks of the league, something that surely makes Woodcroft an attractive coaching option.
In April, Woodcroft spoke publically for the first time since being fired by the Oilers, talking about how he hadn’t been watching much of Edmonton, and that he had been spending time in Europe working with a few different coaching staffs.
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@thenationnetwork.com.
