Kris Knoblauch isn’t out yet, but Craig Berube’s firing turned Edmonton’s bench into the next coaching story in Canada.
But it’s now being reported by Oilers team reporter, Mark Spector, that Knoblauch is expected to be fired by the end of today.
“There it is, the Edmonton Oilers will be firing Kris Knoblauch.
As of this moment – 11:37 a.m. MT – Kris Knoblauch has not been fired by the Edmonton Oilers.
We are expecting that to happen however, likely by day’s end.”
Berube was fired by Toronto on May 13 after a 32-36-14 season.
Once that move landed, it only sharpened the focus on Edmonton and what Stan Bowman does next.
This is why Knoblauch suddenly feels exposed.
The Oilers finished 41-30-11, good for 93 points, but that wasn’t enough to quiet the questions after another season that fell short of the standard in that room.
The bigger issue is that Edmonton’s search got dragged into public view before any formal decision was made.
Once Bruce Cassidy’s name surfaced, Knoblauch’s hold on the job stopped looking stable.
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That’s where this gets messy for the Oilers.
You can keep a coach, or you can move on, but hanging him in the middle of a public chase creates its own problem.
Edmonton’s next move now carries real weight with Knoblauch
Knoblauch was hired on November 12, 2023, and he is still the official head coach in Edmonton’s team file dated May 13, 2026. That’s the clean fact in a story filled with smoke.
The results weren’t a collapse on paper.
Edmonton scored 282 goals and finished with a +13 differential, numbers that usually keep a coach out of immediate danger.
But this market doesn’t run on decent totals when the expectations are Cup-level.
Once management starts looking over the boards at another coach, the message in the locker room changes fast.
And that’s why this feels bigger than a single firing.
Toronto already made its decision, while Edmonton is staring at the fallout of not making one cleanly enough.
If Bowman fires Knoblauch later Wednesday, it won’t land as a surprise.
It will land as the formal end of a day when the Oilers let the story get ahead of them.
If Edmonton keeps him, that comes with its own dent.
A coach can survive speculation, but it’s tougher to walk back a public search once everybody around the league saw it.
Either way, Berube won’t be the only Canadian bench boss tied to fallout this week. Knoblauch is sitting in the middle of it, and the Oilers now have to own whatever comes next.