Knoblauch knew how to change the Oil
Edmonton's quiet coach is 2-for-2 in Western Conference titles as the Cup Final begins Wednesday.
The final goal of the 2024-25 hockey season came from the stick of Sam Reinhart. After Carter Verhaeghe’s crisp pass out of the Florida zone, Reinhart skated down the right wall, and skated, and skated, and finally concluded that no Edmonton defender seemed interested in apprehending him. Reinhart shot the puck past Stuart Skinner, and Florida won the game, 2-1, and the Stanley Cup Final, 4-3. The goal foiled the Oilers’ hopes of becoming the first team to overcome an 0-3 deficit in the Final, and it ended a travel marathon that included four flights between the NHL’s northern and southeastern frontiers.
Among those who don’t actually wear the Florida and Edmonton sweaters in combat, a Final rematch in 2025 seemed preposterous. There was respect for the Panthers’ aggression and leadership, but they didn’t always seem engaged during the 82-team march, and thus they’re starting the Final on the road Wednesday night. Not that the Oilers took the winter seriously, either. Injuries and inconsistency put Edmonton behind Vegas and Los Angeles in the Pacific Division scrum, and they implicitly decided to hoard their energy at the end.
Yet here they are. Two hot teams? Well, cold teams never get this far. But the Panthers squashed Carolina in five Eastern final games, and began the playoffs by dominating their rivals from Tampa Bay. They did fall behind Toronto, 2-0, in the second round, but won that series with 6-1 road victories in Games 5 and 7. Edmonton lost its first two playoff games in L.A. and looked woefully unqualified. Since then the Oilers are 12-2.
Reinhart is less surprised than anyone, and not just because of his faith in the Panthers. One reason he was prepared for the NHL, he says, was the work of Kris Knoblauch, who was the coach of the Kootenay Ice of the Western Hockey League when Reinhart played there. Alex DeBrincat, the high scorer for Detroit, played for Knoblauch with the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League and says the same thing. Now Knoblauch coaches the Oilers, and has reached the Final in each of his first two years. Yes, Connor McDavid was also an Otter when Knoblauch coached, but no one is saying Knoblauch is riding shotgun anymore. The comfort level between team and coach is a tricky equation that can change daily, and the Oilers seem to believe in their angular, reticent 46-year-old coach, from the Saskatchwan hamlet of Imperial, population 300.
It’s difficult to remember just how forlorn the Oilers looked, three playoff rounds ago. They gave up 12 goals in those first two losses to the Kings, who were 5-for-10 on the power play. Back home for Game 3, Edmonton scored the first two goals but trailed 4-3 after two periods, even though Knoblauch had replaced goalie Stuart Skinner, who can resemble Dominik Hasek one week and Dom DeLuise the next, with Calvin Pickard.
Evander Kane appeared to tie the game early in the third period. The officials first ruled that Kane had kicked the puck in, but then watched a replay and allowed the goal. But Kings’ coach Jim Hiller, with his team still in command of the series, wanted more. He challenged the call because he, or his video team, spotted goaltender interference. It wasn’t there, the Oilers were awarded a power play on the failed challenge, and Evan Bouchard blasted the go-ahead goal 10 seconds later. Edmonton won, won the next game, thoroughly dominated the Kings in a return visit to L.A., and captured the series at home.
Pickard won those four games and then beat Vegas in the first two games of the Western semis. Then he got hurt and Skinner, his mind cleared, reclaimed the net with a vengeance. He is 6-2 since then with two shutouts, but his save percentages have either been .971 and higher, or .833 and lower. Through it all Knoblauch has barely changed expression.
Don’t confuse his calmness with indecisiveness. When faced with Jack Eichel’s explosiveness in the Vegas series, Knoblauch put Leon Driasaitl on a checking line with Kasperi Kapanen and Vasily Podkolzin. Eichel had three even-strength points and no goals overall, and Vegas did not score in Games 4 and 5. How many players would accept such a defensive burden after they led the NHL in regular-season goals? Draisaitl is one of the few, but Knoblauch might be one of the few coaches who would ask.
After much tinkering, Knoblauch also has found defensive combos that work. Bouchard and Darnell Nurse weren’t meshing because both are offensively-inclined. Knoblauch put Bouchard with the reliable, physical Brett Kulak until Mattias Ekholm,, the Oilers’ best all-around defenseman, could return from injury. Until then Nurse was teaming with Troy Stecher, who rose to the occasion. Nurse then joined Kulak. Meanwhile, Jake Walman, acquired from Detroit at the deadline, was settling in with John Klingberg, who had 67 points for Dallas in 2018 but has bounced from Anaheim to Minnesota to Toronto since. Walman is second in the league in playoff hits, and Edmonton will prosper if he and Ekholm can withstand Florida’s violent forechecking.
The Oilers are 94-47-10 since Knoblauch replaced Joel Woodcroft in the fall of 2023. This has been noticed in New York, because Knoblauch was the coach of the Rangers’ AHL affiliate in Hartford, and the Rangers floundered this season and eventually fired coach Peter Laviolette. Did the Oilers know Knoblauch better than the Rangers did? Certainly they had McDavid’s endorsement, but Jeff Jackson is the club president now, and as an agent he had represented several players who knew Knoblauch in Erie. While there, Knoblauch stationed his office near the front door of the Otters’ practice rink so he could greet players when they arrived. One day, the club owner dropped by and saw that Knoblauch had an open binder on his desk, showing practice drills. Knoblauch had written, “Does Not Work,” over the Xs and Os, as a reminder. If he loses, it won’t be because he was out-detailed.
General manager Stan Bowman, son of the immortal Scotty, gets a nod as well. The Oilers squirm uncomfortably in the salary cap, thanks to McDavid and Draisaitl, but Bowman brought in Walman, Klingberg and Boston’s menacing Trent Frederic. When Kane got healthy, they suddenly were malicious enough to get through the spring. They won’t have Zach Hyman in the Final, after last year’s 50-goal scorer became a hitting merchant in the playoffs, and that’s significant. But Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, a former first-overall pick, has five goals playing alongside McDavid, three on the power play.
On the other side, 40-year-old Corey Perry has seven goals. Knoblauch moved him to the first line when Hyman was hurt. Perry lofted the 2007 Stanley Cup when he and Ryan Getzlaf were rookies. When the Ducks bought him out, Perry went on a quixotic Cup hunt that took him to the Finals on behalf of Dallas, Montreal, Tampa Bay, and, last year, Edmonton. Now he seeks his second Cup 18 years later. The chalice must feel like The Fugitive by now, looking back to see Perry’s slow, inexorable advance. Wednesday will be his 232rd playoff game. In these playoffs, a third of Perry’s shots have gone in.
The Panthers are also better. Defenseman Seth Jones and winger/disturber Brad Marchand came over at the deadline to break the monotony. Marchand has cemented a strong third line, with Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen. Lundell leads the playoffs at plus-12, and Marchand and Luostarinen are plus-11. Imminent free agent Sam Bennett has 10 goals, most in the playoffs, and captain Aleksander Barkov won a third consecutive Selke Trophy on Monday, and his series-clinching pass to Verhaeghe that wrapped up the Carolina series should be shown at every clinic.
But the goaltending matchup is the 24/7 theme. Sergei Bobrovsky won the Cup for Florida last year and is still a viable contender for the Conn Smythe Trophy. Sure, he can have an off-game, but he’s at the bottom of coach Paul Maurice’s worry list. For Edmonton, Skinner’s talent for disintegration and reassembly is firmly baked-in. With Swift Current in 2018, Skinner pitched a shutout against Everett to win the WHL championship, and his playoff save percentage was .932….and that followed a 6-1 loss the game before. In the first round Skinner gave up six goals and then seven goals to the Regina Pats, but made 36 of 38 saves in Game 7.
That gave Swift Current its first league championship since 1993. Know what else happened in 1993? Montreal beat the Kings in the Stanley Cup final, and the pivotal play was another L.A. hiccup, this one an illegal stick penalty to Marty McSorley that enabled the Canadiens to tie and win Game 2.
And as everyone north of the border knows, 1993 was the last time a Canadian-based NHL team won the Stanley Cup. It’s impossible to imagine that the Cup will escape McDavid’s fingerprints much longer, regardless of Florida’s depth (10 players with 10 or more playoff points) and muscle. If it happens this month, Kris Knoblauch will be among the last to lift it. He will also remember when it seemed heavier.