Desperate Edmonton Oilers Fire Coach Dave Tippett, Bring In Jay Woodcroft

One month ago, Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland told the media that he had no intention of firing head coach Dave Tippett.

“There have been seven coaches here in ten years. You can’t just keep whipping through coaches,” Holland said, adding that he had never made a mid-season coaching change in a management career that spans more than two decades.

Now, he has.

After the Edmonton Oilers came out of the All-Star Break with a 4-0 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights and a 4-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, Tippett was relieved of his duties on Thursday morning, along with assistant coach Jim Playfair.

Head coach Jay Woodcroft of the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors will take over behind the bench, with assistant coach Dave Manson helping him run the defense — essentially, stepping into Playfair’s shoes.

Before joining Bakersfield at the beginning of the 2018-19 season, Woodcroft spent three seasons as an assistant coach in Edmonton, working with Todd McLellan. He also spent seven seasons working alongside McLellan with the San Jose Sharks. Prior to that, both men worked in the Detroit Red Wings organization under Holland between 2005 and 2008 — McLellan, as an assistant coach and Woodcroft as a video coach.

At his media availability on January 11, Holland made it clear that he hoped to stand firm behind Tippett. But his other non-negotiable was making the playoffs this season.

At that time, the Oilers were headed home after a road trip where they’d gone 1-3-2, and sat 10th in the Western Conference with a record of 18-14-2 for 38 points. They were three points out of the second wild-card spot in the West, held by San Jose, and had three games in hand.

That day, Holland hinted that he’d be open to bringing in Evander Kane to help boost his club’s offense after the mercurial sniper had his contract terminated by the Sharks two days earlier. On Jan. 27, Kane signed a one-year deal with Edmonton worth $1.375 million for the rest of the season — pro-rated to a cap hit of just over $2 million. The 30-year-old has two goals and two assists in his first five games as an Oiler.

And after Edmonton has struggled to keep the puck out of the net for much of the season, starter Mike Smith returned to the net this week. The 39-year-old had played just six games this year as he dealt with multiple injuries, but failed to provide the hoped-for spark. Allowing four goals against both the Golden Knights and the Blackhawks, Smith’s record this season now sits at 2-4-1, with a 3.83 goals-against average and an .890 save percentage.

The bottom line: since Holland’s January press conference, the Oilers have gone 5-4-1. But this week’s losses have pushed them back down into 10th spot in the West, now five points behind the eighth-place Calgary Flames and six points back of the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks, who currently hold down the second and third spots in the Pacific Division standings.

Also currently on the outside looking in: the Sharks, the Dallas Stars, the Vancouver Canucks and the Winnipeg Jets — five teams within five points of each other, with more than 30 games left to play. The brass ring is still in sight, but there’s no guarantee that the Oilers can grab it.

The reason for the urgency? Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

The two megastars are both in their seventh full seasons with the Oilers, but have had just three playoff runs so far in their careers. Edmonton reached Game 7 of the second round before falling to the Anaheim Ducks in 2017, then was eliminated by a 3-1 margin in its preliminary-round series against the Blackhawks in the bubble in 2020, and was swept in Round 1 by the Winnipeg Jets last spring.

Woodcroft, 45, will be Edmonton’s fourth head coach since McDavid was drafted in 2015. A career minor-leaguer as a player, Woodcroft has a Stanley Cup ring from 2008, when he served as video coach for Detroit, and a gold medal from the 2015 World Championship, where he was an assistant coach with Team Canada under McLellan.

This season, the Condors sit third in the AHL’s nine-team Pacific Division, with a record of 18-9-4-3. In 2021, the club won the league’s re-tooled Pacific Division playoffs. In Bakersfield, Woodcroft has had a hand in helping develop present-day Oilers Kailer Yamamoto, Evan Bouchard and Ryan McLeod — three high draft picks who have evolved into NHL regulars.

Hired on May 28, 2019, Tippett leaves the Oilers with a regular-season record of 95-62-14 for a .596 points percentage. But he’ll be remembered most for his 1-7 results in the playoffs.

Now, it’s Woodcroft’s turn to see if he can flip the script and find a way to guide McDavid, Draisaitl and company to postseason success.