- Stan Bowman fired Kris Knoblauch and assistant Mark Stuart on Thursday
- The Oilers GM said the team needed a “different voice” to take the next step
- Read below for Bowman’s full explanation and what’s next in Edmonton’s coaching search
Stan Bowman wanted a different voice behind the Oilers bench.
The Edmonton GM addressed the media Thursday afternoon to explain why he fired Kris Knoblauch and assistant Mark Stuart earlier in the day, just months after handing Knoblauch a three-year extension that hadn’t even kicked in yet.
Bowman walked through his thinking:
“Looking back at the way we ended the previous season, falling just short of the Stanley Cup, and the two seasons that Kris had with the team, it was a decision we made that we felt he had earned that contract extension,” Bowman said. “When we performed our analysis and where we were headed as a team, we felt that we needed a different voice to lead us where we want to get to.”
Watch Bowman’s full media availability:
That extension, signed before the 2025-26 season, was set to kick in for 2027-28. It never gets the chance now.
Reporters pushed Bowman on the Cassidy report, which leaked while Knoblauch was still on the job, before he’d been told he was getting fired:
“I’m not going to comment on media reports about other candidates, that’s not appropriate to be doing that,” Bowman said. “What I can say is that we didn’t rush through this. We did an analysis. We didn’t make our decision until very recently.”
He added that he met with Knoblauch face-to-face late Wednesday night to deliver the news.
A formal search for the next bench boss starts now, though Bowman wouldn’t put a hard clock on it. He floated a week to two weeks as a rough window, then said the Oilers will take whatever time they need.
Knoblauch took Edmonton to the Stanley Cup Final in each of his first two full seasons before this year’s first-round exit to the Anaheim Ducks ended the run. Bowman acknowledged management owns part of that result too.
Thursday’s firings cap a chaotic week for the Oilers that began with the leaked Cassidy report.
