As Stan Bowman attempts to engineer a championship in his first year on the job in Edmonton, the General Manager is holding some cards dealt to him by his predecessor.

The same Ken Holland who is now the new G.M. of the Pacific Division rival Los Angeles Kings, the club the Oilers have vanquished in four straight post-season series.

Whose hand will win their respective team a Stanley Cup sooner?

That and more in this edition of…

9 Things

9. The Edmonton Oilers have a 14-4 record in the post-season when Stuart Skinner does not allow a goal in the first period. When he settles in, he is tough.

8. Edmonton now owns the franchise mark for most NHL playoff victories (games) since 1980. Their win Friday was one-hundred ninety-eight, passing the Pittsburgh Penguins.

7. Unsigned Oilers prospect Max Berezkin won a KHL Championship last week with Lokomotive. The 6’4, 210 LB right winger was selected in Round Five of the 2020 NHL draft, 138 overall. In sixty-six regular season games he was 15-27-42, and 9-5-14 in 21 playoff games.

6. We are all waiting for Connor McDavid to “go off,” in terms of goal scoring. No doubt he is, too, despite his otherwise elevated level of play. He is sure all around it, though: First in these NHL playoffs in shots, slot shots, inner slot shots and rush chances. It is coming…

5. If you did not hear the first intermission interview Friday between Tory Stecher and Oilers broadcasters Jack Michaels and Bob Stauffer, you missed a golden moment. Television is a great medium for sports. But nothing beats radio when it comes to live Hosts working without a net (or an editor).

4. According to SportsNet Stats, the Oilers are a better team in matinees than their reputation would credit them for. Edmonton is 7-4 in postseason afternoon tilts. And in the last fifty matinees (regular season and playoffs) the Oilers are 28-16-6. The Decade of Darkness left some deep scars. We will know soon enough if all this more recent success translates into results today (Sunday).

3. If the Stanley Cup Playoffs were to end today with the Edmonton Oilers victorious, who would your Most Valuable Player be? Would it be Leon Draisaitl who leads the club in goals and scoring and has been an impactful two-way performer? Connor McDavid, who has twenty points in thirteen games as he battles through a bastion of sticks and bodies? Of would it be Evan Bouchard, who is 5-10-15 in thirteen games and is emerging as a defender? You know…I may be inclined to choose the latter.

2. Peter DeBoer is a smart guy. He knows full well that the Darnell Nurse stick on Roope Hintz was just a minor penalty. But the Dallas head coach also knows his team was soundly outplayed on Friday. So, this serves as a convenient deflection from that fact and (he hopes) a motivating factor for his players ahead of Game Three. The truth of the matter is that the Edmonton Oilers have way more to be unhappy about with the Nurse penalty than the Stars or their fans. A minor penalty every day of the week and twice on Sunday’s, it easily could have provided Dallas a spark when the Oilers could least afford that to happen. Fortunate for Darnell, his mates killed it off.

1.Old news now, that Ken Holland has been hired on as the General Manager of the Los Angeles Kings. Mr. Holland is a good man who did far more for the Edmonton franchise than his detractors care to admit. Holland settled the organization down and lent it a needed sense of solid reputation and steadiness. And he was a winner. A champion. The Oilers are still reaping those benefits today. Holland is responsible for Zach Hyman and Mattias Ekholm being in Edmonton. He got the Oilers to Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. To denigrate those accomplishments would be disingenuous.

If the Kings are hoping that Ken Holland can pull the right levers with Los Angeles in “win now mode,” he is probably a good hire. I actually think the Kings are further away that they think they are. Their best players, Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty, are thirty-seven and thirty-five, respectively. But I digress. If L.A. is still in that window, Holland has the CV to help get them over the top. Although he would almost certainly have to go through Edmonton to do it. However, if it turns into a rebuild…that would be a very different story.

Holland’s shortcomings showed in Edmonton. The organization’s drafting and (especially) its development mode was antiquated. He did not think far outside the box when hiring his staff. He was never the most creative executive vis-à-vis the salary cap, his greatest successes by far came in the pre-cap era. he was slow to the analytics scene. And not everyone felt that he was still prepared to grind.

Remember: The seeds of the offer sheets that eventually subtracted Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway from the Oilers roster were planted on Ken Holland’s watch. And there is not much evidence he did anything, certainly not enough, to help avoid it before he departed. If L.A. turns into a longer-term project, that kind of thing can not happen.

Whether you like it or not, Ken Holland deserves a share of the credit for the present-day success of these Oilers. If they win a cup, some of his fingerprints will be on it.

But it is now up to Stan Bowman’s team to prove that they are better without him.

Now on Bluesky @kurtleavins.bsky.social. Also, find me on Threads @kleavins, Twitter @KurtLeavins, Instagram at LeavinsOnHockey, and Mastodon at KurtLeavins@mstdn.social. This article is not AI generated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In memory of Bruce McCurdy, 1955-2025.

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