Mike Babcock is officially taking over as Edmonton Oilers head coach.
The team announced Babcock’s hiring on Tuesday, putting him in charge of a Stanley Cup pursuit that has eluded the Oilers thus far in the Connor McDavid-Leon Draisaitl era.
Babcock becomes the 19th head coach in Oilers’ history. Watch as the team introduces him at a news conference at 2pm ET/11am PT on TSN.ca.
The Oilers confirmed that former Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith will be part of Babcock’s staff in Edmonton as an associate coach. Smith finished this past season as interim coach of the Los Angeles Kings, who hired Peter Laviolette as their new head coach earlier this month.
The news comes just a few days after Babcock was cleared in an NHL investigation requested by the NHL Players’ Association relating to his brief time with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2023. The findings of that investigation allowed the 63-year-old to return to an NHL bench.
“The League has completed its review of Mike Babcock’s tenure in Columbus, and of certain alleged conduct associated therewith. Our investigation has concluded that, even in a light least favourable to Mr. Babcock, there is no current basis to restrict his employment in the League,” the league said in a news release issued last week.
The players’ union called Babcock’s conduct “concerning” and said it expects Babcock will conduct himself accordingly if given another chance to coach in the NHL.
“While we found the allegations of Mike Babcock’s conduct as the Columbus Blue Jackets’ head coach very concerning, the League has decided that there is no current basis on which to restrict his employment. Moving forward, we expect that Mr. Babcock will uphold the high standards required of NHL head coaches,” the NHLPA said in a separate news release.
Earlier this month, TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger reported the Oilers consulted with the NHLPA to see if there were any objections that needed to be resolved before they could potentially hire Babcock as head coach. The Oilers are currently the only team without a bench boss after firing Kris Knoblauch at the end of the season and have been heavily linked to Babcock in the past few weeks.
Babcock was hired as the Blue Jackets’ head coach in July of 2023 but resigned before the season started after a report from the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast indicated he had asked players to share personal photos from their mobile devices.
The situation was investigated by the NHL Players’ Association before Babcock announced his resignation.
Babcock owns a career regular-season head coaching record of 700-418-164 with 19 ties. He also coached Team Canada to Olympic gold medals in 2010 and 2014, as was at the helm for gold at the World Junior Championship (1997), Men’s World Championship (2004) and World Cup of Hockey (2016).
