Oilers: Jay Woodcroft says he’s not afraid of losing his job, but…

Last night, the Edmonton Oilers lost to the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks. From San Jose.

Before the game, everyone was joking that if the Oilers didn’t win the Sharks duel, the Alberta team would never recover. And here you are this morning, in the middle of just such a scenario.

The guys are sorely lacking in self-confidence. They can’t score at the right time. Connor McDavid’s injury is hurting. The goalies aren’t getting the job done – even in the AHL, in Jack Campbell’s case.

Right now, the Oilers have five points and I’m not sure they could beat the AHL’s top club, the Laval Rocket. The guys look lost on the ice.

Which brings us to Jay Woodcroft. The Oilers coach may say he’s not afraid of losing his job, but we all know he can’t go before the media and say he’s afraid of his job. It’s just not done.

Especially since, on the ice, he looked like a guy who knew it was the end for him. He seems to have told his assistant that this might be his last game at the helm of the Oilers.

It’s hard to put your finger on the boo-boo, but I will say this: Jay Woodcroft reminds me an awful lot of Dominique Ducharme (in 2022) right now. At some point, no matter how good you are, it just goes too fast.

And in both cases, there are problems at the top of the pyramid.

This summer, the Oilers hired Jeff Jackson (Connor McDavid’s former agent) as president of hockey operations. And everyone knows that when there’s a change at the top of the pyramid, it puts stress on the employees, who wonder what the new boss thinks of them.

Unless the club has wiped the slate clean and the new boss arrives with his own world.

Right now, we suspect that GM Ken Holland is living on borrowed time. Naturally, the coach, who hasn’t known if he’s the right man for the job since the summer and who has started the season badly, is in the unknown.

Corporate leadership starts from the top. And right now, uncertainty reigns supreme. In my opinion, this clearly explains the Alberta team’s difficult performance.

Dominique Ducharme had his worst moments in Montreal when Marc Bergevin left and he couldn’t figure out what Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes wanted from him. In Ottawa, the new president, Steve Staios, is creating the same kind of uncertainty as in Edmonton at the moment.

If Woodcroft isn’t the man for the job, and Ken Holland isn’t either, get them out now. After all, it’s going to take more than “Jake Allen in Edmonton” to help a club that’s increasingly a keeper’s graveyard and has big questions to answer.

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– Ouch.