Stan Bowman's coaching search heats up after official interview
Jason Gregor dropped a name into the Edmonton Oilers coaching search Tuesday night, and it's a big one. Peter Laviolette has been interviewed.
The report landed on social Tuesday, May 26, and it confirms what a lot of people around the league suspected. Stan Bowman is casting a wide net.
Gregor said he's "pretty confident, certain" Laviolette sat down with Edmonton. That's not a rumour anymore. That's a sitting interview with a Stanley Cup winner.
Laviolette is the kind of name a team turns to when patience is gone. He's coached more than 1,600 NHL games. He's not here to develop a culture. He's here to win now.
And Edmonton needs now. The Oilers finished the regular season 41-30-11 for 93 points, 14th overall in the league. Then they got bounced in the first round by Anaheim in six games.
Watch the tape from that series and the issues jump off the screen. Connor McDavid posted six points in six games and still finished a minus-8. Evan Bouchard went minus-7. The blue line was a sieve.
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What a Laviolette hire would actually mean in Edmonton
Bowman inherited this group in July of 2024 and now owns the rebuild of the bench. The coach is gone. The structure clearly didn't hold up when it mattered.
Bringing in Laviolette is a statement. It tells McDavid and Leon Draisaitl that ownership heard them. It tells the room the practices are about to get harder.
Draisaitl, for what it's worth, was the one Oiler who didn't disappear in the playoffs. Ten points in six games. Three goals. He carried weight McDavid couldn't.
The goaltending file is a separate problem Bowman has to solve in parallel. Tristan Jarry posted an .882 save percentage across 33 games. Connor Ingram finished at .898. Neither is a postseason answer.
A coach can mask a lot of things in this league. He can't mask that.
So the question isn't whether Laviolette would take the job. The question is whether Bowman is actually ready to give a 60-year-old hard-charging vet final say on a roster built around a 29-year-old superstar in the prime of his career.
That conversation happens before a contract gets signed. And it's the one that decides whether this interview turns into a hire or a headline.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 26, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Gabriel Landeskog | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Cole Smith | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mark Stone | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Dylan Coghlan | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nic Dowd | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nazem Kadri | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Martin Necas | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Shea Theodore | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| Mackenzie Blackwood | - | - | - | |
| Brent Burns | - | - | - | |
| Ross Colton | - | - | - | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | - | - | - | |
| Jack Drury | - | - | - | |
| Jack Eichel | - | - | - | |
| Noah Hanifin | - | - | - | |
| Carter Hart | - | - | - | |
| Tomas Hertl | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||