Who is coach Kris Knoblauch, the Oilers’ unlikely season savior?

Jun 7, 2024

Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch

SUNRISE, Fla. — Long before Jay Bouwmeester became a Stanley Cup champion with the St. Louis Blues, he said as a kid that his only goal in life was to play for the University of Alberta Golden Bears.

In an alternate universe, Kris Knoblauch might still be coaching his alma mater – had he gotten the job when interviewed in 2012.

“I would bet that would be the case,” said longtime Golden Bears coach Rob Daum from Austria this week, who coached Knoblauch for five years on campus. “I know he would have been thrilled in that job.”

Sometimes we end up exactly where we’re supposed to be, whether it’s by destiny or pure happenstance. His origin story might explain why some believe it’s the former for Knoblauch.

Now 45, Knoblauch was passed over for the Golden Bears job in 2012. When word leaked that he was runner-up for the position, he was dismissed by the WHL’s Kootenay Ice, somehow leading him east to Connor McDavid and the OHL’s Erie Otters and then hurtling on a path back to Edmonton where it all started – but with the Oilers.

“I think it’s been understated the impact that Kris has had on the Oilers this year,” said Daum, who is still coaching in Austria’s top tier pro league. “From managing personnel to making key decisions, it’s remarkable how much this team has changed from November to where they are now.”

This Stanley Cup Final marks not only the largest distance between cities (2,604 mi.) in league history, but also the biggest gulf in NHL experience among head coaches behind the bench. Florida’s Paul Maurice has coached the second-most regular season games in NHL history (1,849) and Knoblauch (69 games) does not have a full season under his belt, hired on Nov. 12 after Edmonton’s 3-9-1 start. This Final surpasses the gap (1,579 games) in resume in 2002 between Detroit’s Scotty Bowman and yes, Maurice, then with the Carolina Hurricanes.

But if you’re expecting Knoblauch to be wide-eyed and overwhelmed by the moment, that isn’t the man who is Saskatchewan Stoic.

Just about the only emotion – positive or negative – that we’ve seen from Knoblauch since he took over as Oilers coach was a fist-pump after the Oilers clinched the Western Conference on Sunday night.

“I don’t ever stop talking and I’m not sure that Kris ever really said much in our coaches office,” said Ian Laperriere, who coached with Knoblauch on Dave Hakstol’s staff with the Philadelphia Flyers for two seasons, and then against him in the AHL this season between their Lehigh Valley and Hartford teams. “That’s who he is.”

Knoblauch hails from Imperial, Sask. (population: 360) smack in the middle between Saskatoon and Regina. They grow ‘em big and they grow ‘em tough out there, and Knoblauch stands tall at 6-foot-4 – not quite a big as his 6-foot-6 father, Bob, a senior hockey league player in Imperial – but you might not even notice he is in the room.

“Humble person. He was such a low maintenance guy that you’d never know he was around,” Daum said. “Real quiet leader. Not a flashy player. He never sought the spotlight.”

Those Western Canadian farm boy sensibilities gave him the perfect temperament to be a coach. And boy, could he coach. In his first year in Kootenay, the Ice won the WHL championship. In Erie, Knoblauch became the first coach in OHL history to win 50 games in four consecutive seasons (in a 68-game schedule) – and he only had McDavid for two of them.

He then spent two years as an assistant with the Flyers before moving on to become head coach of the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack. He also turned down a chance to join Gerard Gallant’s staff with the big club New York Rangers.

“Some guys are more of a head coach than an assistant coach,” said Laperriere, now head coach of the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms. “That is Kris, to me. When we played against Hartford this year, you could tell how prepared they were. Their power play, penalty kill, everything was all in-sync. I never saw that side of him as an assistant.”

Yet, Knoblauch’s humble nature might have ultimately slowed his rise through the ranks. Because Knoblauch is not a backslapper. He’s not a self-promoter. He isn’t someone who is going to ‘wow’ a GM or owner in an interview.

It was always going to take a special set of circumstances, people that knew first-hand the kind of coach Knoblauch was – instead of people that had to take it on faith or reference – for him to get an opportunity to be an NHL head coach.

And that place was in Edmonton. It started with then-Oilers president Kevin Lowe, who got to know Knoblauch when he was in Erie, as the Oilers formed a deep relationship with Erie Otters owner Sherry Bassin well before McDavid landed there with exceptional status in the OHL Draft.

It continued with Oilers radio broadcaster Bob Stauffer, who has the ear of the most powerful people in Edmonton’s front office. Stauffer was the sports information director at the Univ. of Alberta and proposed to his now-wife Kathy on the air on a night Knoblauch scored five goals for the Golden Bears.

Stauffer had been championing Knoblauch as a coach since then, a deep belief Knoblauch could be a difference maker if given the chance. Knoblauch had appeared regularly on Stauffer’s daily show, Oilers Now on 630 CHED, multiple times every season over the last decade-plus when he had near zero ties to the team.

“I had a pretty good idea of how the Oilers would play under Kris Knoblauch,” Stauffer said, “but I didn’t know he would be this unflappable.”

Perhaps the most important piece of Knoblauch’s puzzle was Jeff Jackson joining the Oilers last summer as CEO of hockey operations. As an agent, Jackson had so many clients play for Knoblauch in Erie or Hartford that he became a believer: McDavid, Connor Brown, Alex DeBrincat, Taylor and Darren Raddysh, Travis Dermott and Ben Harpur. Knoblauch had been tagged by many in November as the “coach hired by McDavid,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Like any coach, he needed someone in his corner who was willing to go to bat for him,” Daum said. “Anyone looking for exuberance or enthusiasm from him in an interview was never going to get that impression. That isn’t him.”

The final piece, of course, was the disastrous 2-9-1 start that sunk the Oilers to 31st place and cost Jay Woodcroft his job, opening the door for all of this to come together. There was a chance Hartford wasn’t bringing Knoblauch back as head coach next season, and now he is four wins away from etching his name in hockey immortality. It took Edmonton eight coaches since 2012 to get to Knoblauch and get it right: Ralph Krueger, Dallas Eakins, Todd Nelson, Todd McLellan, Ken Hitchcock, Dave Tippett and Woodcroft. Maybe, just maybe, this really is what destiny looks like.

Through it all, Knoblauch never changed. If you could shine a spotlight in his brain, the only words you might read are: Know thyself.

“I am a big believer that you are who you are,” Laperriere said. “I believe that’s why he is successful, the way Kris is goes through his team. He’s not trying to be someone he’s not, because players read right through that.”

Daum sees a lot of Knoblauch in himself: “I had the same type of demeanor. I can tell you that inside, he’s feeling all of these emotions, it’s just that he has this ability to control it and keep it under control. That’s his style.”

And watching the Oilers play, so many of the same facets Daum instilled in Knoblauch can be seen in this Stanley Cup Final. Their defensive zone coverage and positioning, their breakouts and efficiency, their forechecking philosophy. There are so many crumbs that lead right back to Clare Drake Arena.

Which is why, when the Oilers were amid an eight-game winning streak this season under Knoblauch, the beginning of turning their season around, that’s exactly where he spent an off night – watching the Golden Bears play on under Ian Herbers, the guy who got that job.

“This is a testament to what he wanted,” Daum said. “He stuck with it. His eyes were always on the prize.”

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