This week’s Sunday Scramble will be a free-flowing exercise, perhaps lacking structure. I guess to mirror the Edmonton Oilers’ performance this year. (We make fun of our teams like you would a sibling, after all). 

Here at Oilersnation it’s been a busy weekend pouring through the many soundbites. The table is set for a consequential off-season. 

So, first impressions of the exit interviews, anything else that rattles around my brain. 

Bowman yay or nay

I was curious what type of endorsement/non-endorsement Stan Bowman would give Kris Knoblauch. 

The response was appropriate, that everything would be evaluated, including himself. No promises, no fatally flawed “vote of approval.” I couldn’t help but think that CEO Jeff Jackson would have some relevance to speak to either Bowman or Knoblauch’s performance. 

We won’t know. Jackson doesn’t live in Edmonton after all, I’m told. Bowman didn’t hire Knoblauch. Jackson had a hand in hiring Knoblauch, in place as the overseer in his first season, the last of Ken Holland. Both have a connection to Connor McDavid in the past, of course. 

So do either survive? 

Thursday night when Game 6, we did a poll on Oilersnation After Dark about who is more to blame, who deserves to be fired: Knoblauch or Bowman. The response was literally 50–50. Much clarity there. 

Listening to both of them speak, I get the sense there’s a disconnect with what Bowman wants to provide the team and how Knoblauch wants to utilize the pieces. 

That played out on the ice this season. Trent Frederic’s role or lack thereof. Andrew Mangiapane. The number of forwards this team played with during the season and many couldn’t stick. 

However, too many players acquired during free agency end up with no role on the team and legitimate capital is used to get them. There isn’t a unified vision about how........

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