November 11, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg

Accountability was billed as a strength of Kris Knoblauch’s when Edmonton Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson introduced him to the media after being hired as the Oilers head coach. Jackson talked about how Knoblauch can empower star players and make everyone feel like they have a role, but he made sure to state that “there’s accountability at the end of the day.”

Related: Deep Dive: Oilers Coaching Change Press Conference

Knoblauch had these words on accountability that day:

“It’s probably the most difficult thing with coaching is holding guys accountable because as a coach, you don’t want your players playing in fear. You don’t want them every time they hit the ice over the boards ‘is this the shift that I make a mistake and I’m out of the lineup’, ‘is it when I get benched’, all that. You want your players feeling empowered that they can make a play and contribute to the team. But obviously, accountability is very important… if they’re mistakes that happen over and over again or if they’re lazy mistakes, then obviously that’s where you have to hold them accountable, and the biggest part of holding players accountable is just taking away ice time, whether they come out of the lineup or you withhold their next shift or a period or whatever it is. Ultimately, that’s the currency that a head coach has.”

To be frank, we haven’t seen players get benched all that often under Knoblauch, and we have watched players make the same mistakes over and over again over multiple stretches under Knoblauch’s reign without missing a shift. Knoblauch faced questions about the standard being high enough right now on Sunday after practice.

After the Oilers got trounced 9-1 by the Colorado Avalanche at home on Saturday night, the status quo was not going to be acceptable anymore. As a result, we saw some measures of appeasement during Monday night’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Evan Bouchard has made a bunch of turnovers that have led directly to dangerous scoring chances and goals against this season, but he hasn’t been benched for any of them. He had a similar stretch last season, and he wasn’t benched then either.

Bouchard took a slashing penalty 9:39 into the game. It was a soft call in my opinion as the “slash” was on the opponent’s stick that was being held loosely, but the penalty was assessed. The Oilers had a strong start to the game, but they fell behind 0-1 after the Blue Jackets scored on that powerplay. 

THAT was the final straw for Knoblauch. Bouchard didn’t see the ice again in the first period after he took that penalty.

Would appear Bouchard didn’t get another shift that period after the penalty.

4:10 ice time.

— Ryan Rishaug (@TSNRyanRishaug) November 11, 2025

Sure, that was a bad time to take a penalty. We don’t like the penalty. But it seemed odd to me that THAT was what finally got Bouchard to ride some pine. It wasn’t any of his turnovers in the defensive zone or poor puck management decisions at the offensive blue line in any of the games prior to Monday night. Nope, it was the soft slashing penalty that broke the camel’s back.

That’s what made me feel like Bouchard’s benching was disingenuous. Knoblauch was clearly feeling pressure to do something to hold Bouchard specifically accountable on Monday night. The media pressure was obvious, and there may also have been pressure from above his head that was unseen by the public. The penalty was the first real opportunity to bench Bouchard, so Knoblauch took it.

That’s not my only issue with Knobaluch’s timing for benching Bouchard. If you recall, Knoblauch benched Leon Draisaitl for part of the third period of the Oilers’ fourth game of last season against the Philadelphia Flyers after he took a bad tripping penalty with eight seconds left in the second period. The penalty came fifteen seconds after the Flyers had scored to take a 3-2 lead in the final minute of the second period. The penalty gave the Flyers an opportunity to take complete control of the game at a critical time. In the end, Draisaitl got a pretty assist on the game-tying goal and he scored the overtime winner. Then he went on to win the Rocket Richard Trophy.

Anyway, that’s the only other time that Knoblauch has benched one of his star players. It wasn’t because of poor puck management. It was because of a bad penalty at a bad time. Knoblauch has only held star players accountable for taking penalties.

That’s not the most important behaviour that needs to be rectified, especially for Bouchard. Knoblauch has even pointed to turnovers as being a problem in games this season during post-game interviews. THAT is the issue that needs to be rectified. If you want to fix a turnover issue, you bench a player after they commit a bad turnover that leads to a scoring chance or a goal against. Knoblauch is benching players to fix the wrong issue. If he was trying to fix the turnover issue, then Bouchard would’ve been benched a long time ago, and Jake Walman and Andrew Mangiapane would’ve been benched after they committed turnovers that led to goals on Monday night. 

Just 1:39 into the second period, Jake Walman turned the puck over at the offensive blue line and subsequently lost eventual goal scorer Sean Monahan as a weak rebound came to him in the slot. THAT is the type of play that merits a benching, but Walman didn’t get benched.

Connor McDavid scored a ridiculous backhand goal after a spin move that sent the Blue Jackets defenceman to the ground to make it 3-2 for the Blue Jackets 58 seconds into the third period. 3:21 later, Andrew Mangiapane gave the puck away at his own blue line in a four-on-four situation, then got beat by a slick toe drag by Kirill Marchenko, and left Walman to defend a two-on-one from the top of the faceoff circles. The two-goal lead was restored for the Blue Jackets. That was an atrocious giveaway at a critical moment in the game, but Mangiapane didn’t get benched.

The fact that Knoblauch has benched anyone at all is a sign of progress compared to Oilers coaches of the recent past. An unwillingness to bench Bouchard when he was having the same turnover issues at the start of the 2023-24 season was a big part of the reason that Jay Woodcroft got fired. I don’t recall Dave Tippett benching anyone, and I don’t recall Todd McLellan or Ken Hitchcock limiting anyone’s ice time that wasn’t named Jesse Puljujarvi. Having said that, Knoblauch should start benching players for the right reasons.

Aside from ice time, the only other weapon in a coach’s arsenal is the media. It’s honestly pretty weak to criticize an individual through the media in my opinion. Knoblauch has historically chosen his words carefully regarding the play of individuals. He doesn’t usually throw individual players under the bus.

Trent Frederic faced the media after the loss on Saturday, and he got called out for his play so far this season. Sportsnet’s Mark Spector pressed the coach about Frederic’s play, and the coach relented and obliged by saying that he wants to see more out of him.

So, Frederic clearly felt pressure to make something happen.  He sought out a fight with notorious tough guy Mathieu Olivier early in the game on Monday night. Frederic deserves respect for going after Olivier because that’s just asking for a beating, but it felt disingenuous because we know he felt forced to do something after the criticism he took in the media both in his own interview and from his coach. The fight didn’t come at a time in the game when it was close and the team needed a lift, and it wasn’t to defend a teammate. He got it out of the way in his first shift.

To his credit, Knoblauch did talk about needing to be better at holding players accountable when he was asked about it on Sunday, and he did two different things to hold two players accountable. He only did it when the external pressure was mounting though. Receiving pressure from above his head is a very real possibility, but I can’t say whether that happened or not because I’m not close to the team in any way, shape, or form. Regardless, it wasn’t done organically.

The Oilers got a HUGE win in dramatic fashion on Monday night; but make no mistake about the fact that it wasn’t a well played game by the Oilers. They aren’t over the issues that have plagued them all season so far. The team has work to do to get out of this funk they’re in as they embark on the toughest road trip of the season, a seven-game Eastern excursion. I’ll be watching to see if Knoblauch starts benching players for grievous puck management errors rather than for penalties throughout this trip as a mechanism to right the ship or if Monday’s actions were measures of appeasement.