Oilers could sweeten the pot to move on from Arvidsson

Edmonton Journal

2 days ago

This 'n that: After a round of interviews the past two years for head-coaching openings, former Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft is taking a step back and will apparently be on Joel Quenneville's coaching staff in Anaheim. Woodcroft is a coach first and if there's been no head-coach hire. He has to stay relevant, so he has to be behind an NHL bench, somewhere … We get the pre-draft trade possibilities here with Habs' Kirby Dach because he was drafted in Chicago by Oilers GM Stan Bowman and he's from Sherwood Park, so local ties, but Dach had major knee surgery in February and he makes $3.36 million for another year. Red flags. Yeah, the smaller Arvidsson for the bigger Dach makes sense dollars-wise, but again, Dach is coming off that bad knee issue … If Corey Perry can get a flat $2 million as a free-agent from a contender, he might jump at it. He got $1.15 million base and $250,000 in team performance bonuses here … Knoblauch inherited his coaching staff with Paul Coffey, Gulutzan, Mark Stuart and Dustin Schwartz when he replaced Woodcroft here in November 2023, but all of the assistant contracts end June 30. If there's an opening, keep an eye on former NHL defenceman Jay McKee, Knoblauch's former right-hand man with the Erie Otters, even if McKee just got a new three-year junior deal in Brantford. McKee earlier interviewed for the vacant Philadelphia Flyers head job (he played with Flyer' GM Danny Briere in Buffalo) but that went to Rick Tocchet … With the NHL draft on tap this weekend, interesting career path for one-time Oilers sixth-round pick, 164th overall, Mike Kesselring. The Oilers gave him up to Arizona when he was playing in Bakersfield to get Nick Bjugstad in 2023 because he was blocked in the organization as a right-shot defenceman by Vincent Desharnais, and now Kesselring is the key piece off-loaded in the Utah trade for Buffalo's J.J. Peterka. Proof that you play to the final whistle in the NHL draft, and sixth-round picks aren't flotsam and jetsam. Like Minnesota took Swede Filip Johansson at No. 24 in Round 1 that year, and he's never played a single NHL game … The Oil Kings have had an array of candidates for their head coaching job with pro experience but arein no hurry to hire Luke Pierce's replacement. Before Pierce was head coach, former NHL assistant Brad Lauer was head man. And Derek Laxdal, who had been in the ECHL, was also an Oil Kings' hire in 2010. Laxdal coaches Seattle's AHL Coachella Valley affiliate right now … Pierce's name has come up as a possible coach/GM with the BCJHL Vernon Vipers. He once played for the Vipers … Kelly Buchberger, who was coach-GM with the first-year AJHL team in Devon, decided he wasn't coming back for a second year because he wants to spend more time with his family. Bucky's Devon assistant coach and former Oilers defenceman Sebastian Bisaillon has now hired on with the BCJHL Spruce Grove Saints as assistant GM/assistant coach … Good to see Marc Habscheid back in the WHL, now as junior head coach in Red Deer, after he left Prince Albert Raiders and went to Austria for a year and a bit.