It hasn’t been officially announced by the team yet, but Bob Stauffer of Oilers Now and 630CHED, along with Kevin Weekes of ESPN are both reporting that the Edmonton Oilers have signed Jay Woodcroft to a three-year coaching extension.
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It was expected that both head coach Jay Woodcroft and assistant coach Dave Manson would receive multi-year extensions before the end of June. It appears GM Ken Holland has taken care of one-half of that equation, with the extensions for both likely to be announced in the coming hours or days.
Stauffer was the first to report the extension.
Woodcroft absolutely earned this extension from the Oilers after coming into a situation where former coach Dave Tippett had been relieved of his duties following a tough stretch of games that saw the team out of the 2021-22 playoff picture. Woodcroft was promoted from Bakersfield of the AHL and immediately vaulted the team up the standings, leading them to one of the better records in the NHL to close the season. The Oilers then won two rounds and made it to the Western Conference Finals before being swept by the Colorado Avalanche.
This is considered a shorter-term by today’s coaching standards, but understandable considering the inexperience Woodcroft has as a head coach and the fact that Holland himself only has two years remaining on his current contract as the team’s general manager.
This decision by the Oilers is the most obvious and easy one the team will have to make this summer. They have some work to do in order to bring back a competitive team. With a number of RFAs and a key UFA in Evander Kane that require extensions, Holland will struggle to give Woodcroft a roster that was as good as last year’s team.
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