November 18, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

In case you missed part one of this piece, I wrote about Oilers owner Daryl Katz’s recent pattern of running to Paul Coffey when the Oilers struggle. In part two, I’ll focus on how events unfolded while Coffey was a skills coach with the Oilers and the parallels between that and the current situation. I’ll also focus on how Coffey symbolizes the lack of trust Katz has in his people.

Related: Coffey is Symbolic of Katz’s Lack of Trust: Part One

Edmonton Sports Talk’s Tom Gazzola gave some insights on Coffey after the coaching changes were made last Sunday. Listen to the relevant clip below:

Tom Gazzola on Paul Coffey… pic.twitter.com/UNab2ivKth

— Ross Creek Nasty (@akaRCN) November 12, 2023

There was a lot of organizational change while Coffey was a “skills coach” between January 21, 2018 and May 28, 2019. Todd McLellan was fired as head coach on November 20, 2018, and then GM Peter Chiarelli was fired on January 23, 2019. Current GM Ken Holland was hired on May 7, 2019. Coffey came in when the team was struggling, and he left shortly after the axes had fallen.

Now, we’ve seen one more head coach (possibly two more head coaches) fired since Coffey rejoined the organization. CEO Jeff Jackson was brought in to oversee the hockey operations department, and it appears that Holland is much less involved in the decision making process in the last year of his contract. The writing is very much on the wall for Holland. Coffey is likely going to be around for another GM change.

Related: Oilers name Jeff Jackson CEO of Hockey Operations

Gazzola’s insights suggest that Coffey’s presence during times of organizational change might not be a coincidence.

Coffey’s re-emergence in the Oilers organization was unceremonious. I was unable to find a formal announcement about the hiring. Coffey’s profile on the Oilers staff page on their website is the only profile of a high ranking Oilers executive that doesn’t offer a specific hiring date. It simply says that he was hired in 2022. His two positions with the team have left room for ambiguity. Nobody really knew what he was doing as a “skills coach”, and his duties as Special Advisor to the Owner & Chairman are vague. Why is there such a need for Katz to avoid transparency regarding Coffey? Gazzola’s insights might also answer that question.

This decision to place Coffey behind the bench has the foul stench of ownership involvement. Coffey said that Jackson approached him about coaching, but we don’t know why Jackson approached Coffey. Jackson has made nothing but progressive hires since joining the Oilers. Bringing in Coffey to coach isn’t progressive. The decision feels out of character for Jackson.

Coffey is one of the greatest offensive defencemen to ever play the game. He clearly understands hockey. He could be an amazing coach. However, there’s nothing that can be said that can take away Coffey’s recent history with the team or that can erase any concerns about his relationship with Katz.

Katz has been a lifelong fan of the Oilers, and he got to watch the dynasty years first hand. He’s a passionate owner, and he wants nothing more than to bring a Stanley Cup to Edmonton. He has done A LOT of good for the Oilers franchise and for the city of Edmonton. 

However, his lack of trust in anyone that didn’t play on those Oilers teams of the eighties is a problem. One of Katz’s first moves after buying the team in 2008 was promoting Kevin Lowe to President of Hockey Operations. Lowe was promoted after missing the playoffs in the previous two seasons as general manager after taking the Oilers to the 2006 Stanley Cup Final. The Oilers hired Peter Chiarelli six days after they won the Connor McDavid sweepstakes, and Kevin Lowe became a Vice Chairman of the Oilers Entertainment Group. Lowe was out of hockey operations, but he was still a part of the organization. Katz couldn’t cut ties with Lowe after seven years of complete and utter team failure during his tenure as President of Hockey Operations. Craig MacTavish was hired as Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations in 2012, and he took over as GM ten months later. MacTavish had plenty of coaching experience, but hadn’t even been a GM yet when he was hired as a high level executive.

Let’s not forget that Wayne Gretzky worked as a special advisor with the Oilers from 2016-2021 as well. Katz didn’t employ any special advisors that also played for the team in the eighties while Lowe was running the show in Katz’s first seven years of ownership. That just speaks to the issues presented in the “Red Wine Summit” piece that Matthew Iwanyk refernced in the above oudio clip from Edmonton Sports Talk. The piece called “Oilers being held hostage by voices of their past” was written by Sportsnet’s Mark Spector on April 12, 2018, three months after Coffey was hired as “skills coach”. Spector talked about the influence of the “Old Boys Club” on Katz. Lowetide referenced it in a piece that he wrote for The Athletic the day Coffey was hired as skills coach as well. I don’t know how much influence Coffey or Gretzky have had as special advisors, but the evidence suggesting that Katz relies heavily on the opinions of Oilers greats is damning.

What’s worse than Katz’s reliance on the dynasty day Oilers in my opinion is the clear lack of trust that Katz has on the people that are in place, specifically Bob Nicholson (who was recently pushed out of hockey operations) and Ken Holland (who appears to presently be being pushed out of the GM role). Coffey is a symbol of that. Trust is a powerful thing. A culture with a lack of trust is toxic. It’s really hard to succeed in the workplace if your boss doesn’t trust you. Success comes much easier when you have the trust of your superiors. Trust breeds confidence and workplace satsfaction. I’ve been on both ends of that. I can imagine that it would be hard to do your job to your full capabilities when the boss hires someone to watch over your shoulder. Remember when Bob Nicholson famously said that “there’s something in the water here in Edmonton”? The lack of trust from the owner is likely the “something in the water” in my estimation, speaking strictly as an outsider of course.

The trust issue appears to be resolving itself before our eyes though. If Coffey was “running the team” this spring as Gazzola suggested, then Coffey likely played a large role in bringing in Jackson. Katz clearly trusts Coffey, so hopefully there’s a level of trust in Jackson by association. There needs to be if there isn’t. There’s another significant question to be asked about the future of the team that comes from all of this. If Coffey’s presence has uncoincidentally coincided with organizational changes in the past, what does his presence in the dressing room mean for the potential of meaningful change to the roster in the near future? Probably too much. Read into that what you will.