Pat Burns was a tough NHL coach if there ever was one. A police officer of 16 years at Gatineau, Quebec, Burns’ transition to coaching was almost seamless. And the fans loved him. “What most people admired most about Pat was that he was part of the blue-collar people,” said Pat’s cousin after the former’s passing in 2010 on what made the Stanley Cup-winning coach a popular character. For Kris Knoblauch, the story could have been almost the same.

“There’s no silver lining to this,” said the appalled Edmonton coach after the Florida Panthers defeated the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals for the second straight year. However, the seasoned NHL coach knows that such hiccups are part and parcel of the game, and he eagerly waits to redeem himself in the 2025-26 season. The desire to win the Stanley Cup could be a major motivator, undoubtedly. But the next season might also be Kris’s chance of proving to himself that the decision to ditch his early dream was worth it.

Knoblauch recently talked to The Daily Faceoff’s Jason Gregor, revealing how he initially wanted to become a cop. In a YouTube upload by Oilersnation from July 22, the Oilers’ boss surprisingly admitted that he might have very well been a public service officer instead of a revered NHL coach. When Gregor asked Kris how the thought of coaching hockey sounded to him during the latter’s University of Alberta days (1999-2003), the Edmonton coach admitted that his love for the sport was sparked by the university coach at that time. “I thought he was a great coach and uh loved what he was doing with our team and um yeah, a lot of respect for him, because he was a good coach,” he said. But in his heart, the future NHL celebrity knew, it wasn’t something he wanted to do.

“In university I thought I was going to be a police officer, and I was going to be on in Edmonton,” Kris Knoblauch elaborated on what his plans were during those days, despite being in close proximity to a skilled hockey coach. But when an unexpected opportunity came knocking, the National Championship-winning star wanted to explore his options. “I played pro for one season and was still thinking about the police force, but then I got a job offer to be an assistant in Lethbridge (WHL),” Knoblauch said. While that didn’t ultimately pan out, the thought of coaching was an idea that was nonetheless planted in his brain.

“I didn’t get that job, but it opened my mind to thinking coaching was an option,” the hockey mastermind said about how he first started pondering over a viable career as a hockey coach. And soon, his desire to test out the coaching waters was at hand. In 2006, Knoblauch was enlisted as the assistant coach for the Prince Albert Raiders, before heading to the Kootenay Ice in the same designation the following year. Both were WHL teams.

In 2012, Kris made his next transition, this time to the Ontario Hockey League, as the head coach of the Erie Otters. In 2017, Knoblauch finally entered the NHL chat as the assistant coach for the Philadelphia Flyers for two seasons, before heading to the AHL as the head coach of the Hartford Wolf Pack, the New York Rangers’ affiliate team.

In November 2023, Knoblauch was appointed as the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers. In the next two seasons, the Western Conference powerhouse team made two back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Finals. While the Oilers lost both times at the hands of the Cats, it was still a testament to the coach’s acumen nonetheless. After all, taking a team to the Finals for two straight years isn’t an easy feat, let alone doing it in the season right after becoming the head coach.

Knoblauch’s Oilers post a 94–47–10 regular-season record, along with a 29–18 postseason record. For obvious reasons, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the top brass at the Edmonton camp wanting to keep him around for another tenure after his current contract expires at the end of the 2025-26 season.

Kris Knoblauch still has time to make amends

The loss to the Panthers this year was a hard pill to swallow. Despite starting the Finals with a thumping 4-3 OT victory, the Oilers fell short. Last week, Knoblauch admitted that Edmonton’s penalty kills were deplorable, and said about the future, “There will be changes to our system. We will be doing things a little bit differently.” On Monday this week, he shed more light on the matter.

“More similar to what other teams are doing. I think we’ll be doing a lot of copying of what some of the other successful teams have been doing around the NHL,” Knoblauch said during an appearance on the Oilers Now show with Bob Stauffer. But a change in the personnel might not be the solution to the Oilers’ lingering troubles. “I think the biggest challenge is holding young players accountable, while also letting them play. They have to learn and be able to make mistakes and find that fine line of letting young players grow while holding them accountable is hard to find as a coach,” the boss said on the Jason Gregor show.

All these changes will take time to show results. And it seems like the Oilers are also up for giving Knoblauch another shot at bringing the Stanley Cup to Edmonton. “For sure want to get something done with him. The fact that he’s got another year, we got a lot of other stuff we’re going to sort through here, but I do expect to get to that in time,” the Oilers GM Stan Bowman on the chances of extending Kris’s contract after next year.

But first things first. How do you expect to see the revamped Edmonton squad perform in the 2025-26 season? Do you expect to see another exhibition of Kris Knoblauch’s exquisite coaching wisdom? Or will all the planning fall flat on its face? Tell us below!