The Edmonton Oilers took a noticeable tumble in The Athletic’s latest front-office rankings poll, dropping six spots from 21st to 27th after a busy offseason that included a coaching change and a front-office shakeup.
The biggest headline was the decision to fire Kris Knoblauch and bring in Mike Babcock behind the bench. It was a bold call to move on from a winning coach who had not even begun a new extension, then hand the job to a polarizing coach coming out of retirement. But that wasn’t the only move that drew attention, and not all of it was flattering.
The Athletic’s ranking puts Edmonton in rough territory. Only five teams landed below the Oilers: the New York Rangers, Seattle Kraken, Los Angeles Kings, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Detroit Red Wings.
The poll’s criticism was direct. One voter said:
“Bowman appears to be operating reactively and without a longer term plan. I get that there is pressure to contend while McDavid is on his two year extension, but several of his panic moves have made the team worse.”
Another comment was even more pointed:
“I’ve never been overly worried about the talk of ‘wasting McDavid’s career’ before, but the tandem of Bowman and Babcock finally has me truly concerned.”
The Athletic says its front-office rankings are built from six categories: roster building, cap management, drafting and development, trading, free agency, and vision. It also notes that the poll reflects the collective opinion of 10,000 fans, which naturally brings some bias into the mix.
Even so, the reaction makes sense given how much scrutiny Edmonton faces. The Oilers have two of the best players in the world, still haven’t won the Stanley Cup with some loaded rosters, and Connor McDavid is now on a deal with only two more years left. That kind of timeline puts every decision under a microscope.
There were still some moves that drew positive reviews. Trading Darnell Nurse without retaining salary and signing Ryan Shea at half the cost was viewed as a well-put-together sequence. But the front office also piled up enough doubts to leave a mark.
The article pointed to the Tristan Jarry trade as a debacle and said the Trent Frederic deal has already aged horribly. It also noted that Jason Dickinson is a nice player, but Edmonton paid a lot to get him and keep him. On top of that, the lingering pain from the dual offer sheets still hangs over the organization.
The bigger question is whether this drop really reflects where Edmonton stands compared with other teams. The article raises the point of whether the Oilers were actually worse than clubs like the Winnipeg Jets or Vancouver Canucks, or than Anaheim, where the Ducks have badly mishandled their cap situation and could lose Cutter Gauthier after what now looks like a poor decision to play contract hardball.
Still, in this poll, the answer was clear: Edmonton finished well down the list, and the front office is under the kind of heat that only gets worse when the window around McDavid keeps shrinking.
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A move like that would not just be about one player, either. It could ripple through the rest of the roster, forcing the Oilers to make a choice on younger depth pieces while they sort out how they want their checking lines to look heading into the next stretch of the season. More Oilers talk is expected soon on Sports 1440 and YouTube, where this kind of roster wrinkle should get plenty of attention. [Read more 🡒]