Former Edmonton Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft holds no grudge that he was unable to get the team to the heights reached after his dismissal last November.
In a one-on-one interview with The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun, Woodcroft reflected on his nine seasons with the Oilers organization and the disastrous beginning to the 2023-24 campaign that made it come to an end. He admitted that he still thinks about that 3-9-1 start and is using it as a valuable lesson to take into his next gig wherever that may be.
“When I look back, I look back at the whole,” he said. “Not just a two-week window. And I think that’s how you get better. Are there moments that you might, with the benefit of hindsight, do something differently? Of course there are. But that’s what hindsight is. You’re able to look back at it through a different lens.”
The thinking is not simply about what led to things spiralling out of control to begin the campaign but also why he was not able to stop the bleeding. Of course, Oilers fans don’t need to be reminded of how things went last year because there were legitimate concerns that a season with bigger aspirations could be wasted before it even got off the runway.
Edmonton was thankfully able to turn things around with Kris Knoblauch at the helm which included a 16-game win streak and nearly overcoming a 3-0 series deficit in the Stanley Cup Final before losing Game 7 to the Florida Panthers. Woodcroft is not surprised that the Oilers were able to pull that off because he could sense something special was brewing which he got to witness firsthand in his two and a half seasons in charge.
“As the coach at the time, I felt we were 90 percent there,” he said. “I felt the team was really ready to take a step. I didn’t get to see it through, but I saw lots of good things from a lot of good people. A lot of leadership. I saw a lot of role acceptance. And I saw the team on the cusp. The team ended up going on to do some good things. That’s a credit to all those players and staff who were able to get it done.”
He later added that he felt the Oilers were generating quality scoring chances and not giving up a whole lot even if the opportunities against them ended up in their net. Woodcroft sensed that things were beginning to turn a corner and although he was not there to see it through, he is proud of his former players for finding a way out of a bad start.
Woodcroft has yet to find a new home since being fired, though it is not for a lack of trying. He used the time away to spend quality time with his family and study human behaviour so he could be best prepared for his next opportunity. This past summer saw him come close to landing his next gig, being a finalist for openings for the New Jersey Devils and Columbus Blue Jackets before they went to Sheldon Keefe and Dean Evason respectively.
He also got to join Team Canada’s staff at the World Hockey Championship, attended the NHL Coaches’ Association in Prague in September, and even got invited by John Tortorella to join the Philadelphia Flyer’s training camp. In the meantime, Woodcroft will remain in Edmonton with his family as he awaits his next chapter as an NHL coach.
“The process, I felt, was informative and made me think about what my core beliefs were,” he said. “It made me be able to articulate what was most important to me as a coach. … I hadn’t had that (head-coach interview) experience very much in my career, so yeah it made me better for opportunities going forward.”
