Jets Enter Game 5 On Tuesday, Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch met with the media in advance of the Stanley Cup Final. Knoblauch, who took over the team in the early stages of the 2023-24 season following the firing of Jay Woodcroft, helped turn the Oilers' season around a full 180 degrees. Knoblauch has taken the 31st-place Oilers team and brought to within four wins of its first Stanley Cup since 1990. But none of that might have been possible if it weren't for a conversation with none other than his opposing head coach, Paul Maurice of the Florida Panthers. For it was back before the draft selection of Connor McDavid that Knoblauch had his first run-in with Maurice. As he detailed in his media conference on Tuesday, it happened at that very draft. “I met (Paul) at the 2015 draft and interviewed for a job on his staff," he said. "That was a memorable draft in Florida. I was young and not what he was looking for, but he did offer to mentor me and later on he did help me,” Not only did the comment help fans understand that the two coaches do share a brief history, but that Maurice did turn him down as an assistant in his interview process. That interview process? Yeah, it came with the Winnipeg Jets and it happened in 2016 when Knoblauch was entering his final season as head coach of the OHL's Erie Otters. Ultimately, the former Jets bench boss and current GM Kevin Cheveldayoff opted to go a different direction, and chose to hire Jamie Kompon and Todd Woodcroft to fill out the assistant coaching roles alongside Charlie Huddy. Knoblauch, on the other hand, ended up joining the Philadelphia Flyers where he served for two seasons as an assistant, before taking over as head coach of the AHL's Hartford Wolf Pack for the 2019-20 season. He served there until his promotion following Woodcroft's firing on November 12 after a 3-9-1 start to the season.
