Hitchcock takes over Oilers
Ken Hitchcock knows the routine well by now as he begins his tenure as new coach of the Edmonton Oilers. For the fourth time in his long coaching career, Hitchcock has been tasked with taking over a struggling team in the middle of the season.
Hitchcock was hired yesterday as coach of his hometown Oilers after the team fired Todd McLellan with the team languishing in sixth place in the Pacific Division.
“It’s not going to change overnight, but we can start taking some steps,” said Hitchcock, who led St. Louis to a first-place finish in 2011-12 after taking over as coach one month into the season. “I told the players today I can take them to a place personally that they can’t get to themselves, but they’ve got to buy into that, and it’s not going to be comfortable at times.”
The Oilers have lost 6-of-7 games, getting outscored 27-11 in those losses, in a rough start to McLellan’s fourth season behind the bench. The team missed the playoffs in two of his previous three seasons despite having superstar Connor McDavid on its roster and the Oilers were just 9-10-1 entering their game last night at San Jose.
“It’s tough to pinpoint what we need, but we’re all to blame here,” McDavid said. “This obviously isn’t on Todd at all. It’s on us as players. That’s just how the business works sometimes. We got to wake up here.”
“Obviously we’re in a rough patch here,” general manager Peter Chiarelli said. “We’re leading into American Thanksgiving. It’s a bit of a template for making the playoffs. I felt I was seeing some things that I had seen last year after not seeing them for quite a fair bit this year, and these recurring themes, I wanted to nip them in the bud.”
The 66-year-old Hitchcock announced his retirement in April after a 22-year coaching career, which included a Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars in 1999. He had two stints in Dallas as well as head coaching stops in Philadelphia (2002-2006), Columbus (2006-2010) and St. Louis (2011-2017).
Hitchcock is the third-winningest coach in NHL history with an overall record of 823-506-88-119 (.603 winning percentage). He has guided teams to eight division titles and twice to the best record in the NHL and has an 8682 playoff record.
“It’s definitely going to be tough,”
said forward Kyle Brodziak, who played for Hitchcock in St. Louis. “It’s always an adjustment. Guys will have to get used to different styles. Hitch is a hard coach, He’s going to be tough on guys and demand a lot. We have to be ready to produce and face the music for sure.”
Elsewhere in the NHL — The Blues will be casting a wide net in their coaching search.
General manager Doug Armstrong fired Mike Yeo after Monday’s 2-0 loss to the Kings. Craig Berube is the interim coach while Armstrong assembles a list of candidates for the permanent job.
“There’s going to be experienced head coaches on that list,” he said at a news conference . “There’s going to be European head coaches on that list. College head coaches on that list. Junior head coaches. We’re not going to minimize or limit the scope that we’re going to look at.” . . .
Veteran Washington Capitals defenseman Brooks Orpik has undergone arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and is expected to miss 4-6 weeks.
Orpik has missed the past nine games.