Knoblauch again conjures up secret sauce to keep his job and help turn around Oilers

For three years running the Edmonton Oilers have started out their seasons in awful slumps.

For three years running those slumps ended in November, with the team finding a way to turn things around.

But in only one of those years did the Oilers head coach lose his job. In 2023-24, Jay Woodcroft was fired on November 12th, with his team seemingly stuck in a wretched 13 game slump. Kris Knoblauch took over and the Oilers dramatically improved.

The following 2024-25 season, after having made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, the Oilers slumped for the first 14 games, but Knoblauch wasn’t fired. He and the team managed to turn things around, with the team tightening up its overall defensive play.

The same trend of moving from slump-to-revival appears to be happening this 2025-26 season, only this time the slump stretched for 25 games, with Knoblauch and the team then turning things around in the past 19 games after a brutal 8-3 loss to the Dallas Stars.

Edmonton has played in this 19-game hot streak at the same high level it achieved under Knoblauch in 2023-24 after he took over the team from Woodcroft.

How did Knoblauch and the Oilers do it this time?

Essentially the same way he did it in 2023-24. The secret sauce then and now has been changing out a key goalie, sharply reducing the use of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the same line, and perhaps uncoincidentally, ramping up the team’s overall ability to attack.

Offensive explosion

In the past 19 games the Oilers have been hotter than hell on the attack, creating 16.4 Grade A shots per game and 8.2 of the even more dangerous five-alarm shots per game, up from just 13.7 Grade As and just 6.0 five-alarm shots per game in the first 25 games of the year.

For background, 16.4 Grade A shots per game is about as high as I’ve seen from the Oilers over a significant run of games. Their attack play, propelled ahead by Connor McDavid’s astonishing scoring, is out of their own world.

Not surprisingly, the team is scoring more, 3.8 goals per game in the last 19 games compared to just 3.1 goals per game in the first 25.

Edmonton hasn’t seen this kind of improvement since Knoblauch first took over the team. At that time in 2023-24, the Oilers went from 13.8 Grade As, 6.3 five-alarm shots and 2.9 goals per game under Woodcroft to 16.2 Grade As, 7.6 five-alarm shots and 3.7 goals per game under Knoblauch.

How did Knoblauch and the Oilers bring about the massive improvement in offensive production?

One thing he did just now was the same as he did in 2023-24, namely reducing the playing time of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl together at 5-on-5 on the same line.

There have been times when McDavid and Draisaitl have been punishingly good together on the same line. In 2020-21 under coach Dave Tippett they scored 33 goals for and gave up just 17 against, a 66.0 Goals For Percentage, playing 6.1 minutes 5-on-5 per game together.

When the Oilers need a goal when they’re down in game, playing McDavid and Draisaitl is often a good idea. It was the turning point of Edmonton’s 4-3 win over Winnipeg on Thursday. Knoblauch sent out McDavid and Draisaitl together late in the second period. They immediately manufactured some Grade A shots and scored a crucial goal.

They did well under Knoblauch, too, in 2023-24, with a 64.4 GF% (Goals For Percentage) in 6.8 minutes per game together, but it’s worth noting that Knoblauch backed off on their 5-on-5 time-on-ice together, cutting down from the 8.2 minutes together they were getting under Woodcroft in the first 13 games. It was Woodcroft’s heaviest use of the two together at 5-on-5, but the plan had diminishing returns in that short stretch, as the two stars had just five goals for, four against, a 55.6 GF%.

This year Knoblauch at first used McDavid and Draisaitl more than he ever had before, 7.2 minutes per game 5-on-5 for the first 25 matches. The two struggled to reach great heights, just nine goals for, eight against, a 52.9 GF%.

In the past 19 games he’s used them just 3.3 minutes per game together, with mediocre results, six goals for, six against.

But having them leading their own lines has proven an excellent elixir for Edmonton’s overall attack. Having them lead their own lines means that instead of just one winger getting the chance to play on a line with a superstar, now four wingers get that chance. It’s also the case that both McDavid and Draisaitl are good enough to drive possession of the puck all by themselves, and puck possession is a key aspect of Knoblauch’s game plan.

McDavid has found great chemistry with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman, just as he did in 2023-24 when that line had 34 goals for, 20 against, a 63 GF%, and Hyman scoring 54 goals that year.

Hyman and RNH formed a line with Connor McDavid on Nov. 29 in Seattle, the same day that RNH returned from injury. The team’s current 19-game hot streak began that game.

The line has a 65 GF%, 13 goals for, seven against. The trio’s scoring has shot up. McDavid has gone from 1.36 points per game in the first 25 matches to 2.26 points per game in the last 19. Hyman has also improved during the hot streak from 0.33 points per game to 1.11 points per game.

 

Other key players have also improved their points production, including Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm, while Darnell Nurse has amped up both his two-way play and his physical play as well, as seen in his greater number of penalty minutes.

At the same time, Knoblauch has played struggling forwards Trent Frederick and Andrew Mangiapane fewer minutes during the hot streak, with Ike Howard now recalled to play with Jack Roslovic and Matt Savoie on an attacking third line.

The goalie issue

Edmonton’s save percentage was just .860 in the first 25 games of the 2025-26 season with Calvin Pickard and Stuart Skinner in net. It’s been .900 in the last 19 games with a combo of Skinner, Pickard, Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram.

That’s a massive improvement, just like the Oilers saw after the 13-game Woodcroft slump in 2023-24, when the save percentage went from .864 with Campbell and Skinner in net under Woodcroft. It shot up to .904 in 69 games with Skinner and Pickard in net under Knoblauch as coach.

In 2023-24, the team went into the year hoping that expensive free agent signing Campbell could turn things around, revitalize his career in Edmonton after a poor 2022-23 season that saw him lose his starting job to Skinner.

But Campbell failed to do so, playing just five games, losing four of them with a weak 0.873 save percentage. Campbell was sent to the minors, replaced by Pickard as Skinner’s back-up, with Pickard posting a .909 save percentage in 23 games, Skinner .905 in 59 games.

This year it was Skinner hoping to rebound after an inconsistent and mediocre 2024-25 season, where he posted an .896 save percentage in 51 games.

But this year it was also Skinner who failed to rebound in Edmonton, playing 23 games winning 11 and losing 12, with a mediocre .891 save percentage. He was traded to Pittsburgh for incoming goalie Tristan Jarry, with Jarry, Pickard and Connor Ingram now all playing much better.

Where does this go?

The good news is that the Oilers are back in this 19 game streak to having a similar point percentage as they had in the last two seasons under Knoblauch when they made it to the Stanley Cup Final.

The other good news is that their Grade A shots, 5-alarm shots and goal differential is also in the same positive territory as it was in the past under Knoblauch.

More good news is that between Jarry, Ingram and Pickard, as well as hot shot prospect Connor Ungar in Bakersfield, the Oil may have solved their goalie issue for this season.

The bad news? This streak hasn’t been for most of a season, or an entire season, just for 19 games. The Oilers have to keep it up. They also have some obvious holes in their line-up that need filling. Knoblauch is slowly finding lines that work, with all four lines now showing either spectacular results or promising results.

Things appear to be coming together for another Stanley Cup run. That’s more than we could say in October or November.

At the Cult of Hockey

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