Kris Knoblauch was relieved of his duties as Edmonton Oilers coach on May 14, and the organization is three weeks and counting into a search for the next bench boss.

It’s the longest stretch in over a decade that the Oilers haven’t had a head coach, the last public headhunt being when Ken Holland was hired as general manager in 2019. It took 21 days for him to hire Dave Tippett.

All things considered, with the franchise having 18 head coaches in its 46 seasons, the Oilers haven’t conducted many public searches for this job. Typically, they fire-and-hire in the same motion.

Excluding situations where a coach is under “interim” status after a firing, like Ken Hitchcock, or occasions when Glen Sather stepped back behind the bench, this is one of the longer periods in the Oilers franchise history they’ve been without a head coach.

Interim coach Todd Nelson twisted in the wind after the 2014-15 campaign, never fired per se, because he was still under contract and there were discussions at the time that he may remain in the organization. Peter Chiarelli was hired as general manager and president of hockey ops on April 24, 2015, and he took 25 days to hire Todd McLellan.

Tom Renney was let go on May 17, 2012, and 41 days later, Ralph Krueger was introduced. It took an identical 41 days to go from firing Craig MacTavish in 2009 to hiring Pat Quinn.

This current search, seemingly Bruce Cassidy or bust, has taken a little time and will continue to until the Oilers get true clarity from Vegas.

With few other names in the mix, the wait for an announcement pales in comparison to the longest time Edmonton was coach-less back in 1994. GM Glen Sather dragged the decision into August before hiring… George Burnett, which would be another ill-fated – and brief – chapter in Oilers history. 

Burnett, Low, or…. MacTavish?!

Credit: Edmonton Journal, June 9, 1994.

The 1993-94 Oilers season was ghastly. Ted Green, a loyal soldier on the Oilers bench dating back to 1982-83, couldn’t help a severely depleted team from the glory days, which had missed the playoffs for the first time in franchise history the year before.

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