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On Thursday night, two of the worst teams in the NHL faced off in a matchup that was far more intriguing than it had any right to be. When everything was said and done, the Sharks walked away with the 3-2 win over the Oilers—and Edmonton head coach Jay Woodcroft appeared to acknowledge the loss may have cost him his job.
The San Jose Sharks got off to an absolutely brutal start this season after losing their first eleven games (including two consecutive contests where they surrendered 10 goals), although no one really expected a team in the midst of a rebuild to be one of the top contenders in the NHL.
The Edmonton Oilers, on the other hand, have underperformed to a fairly staggering degree. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have largely played at the level that’s expected of them, but there’s only so much two players can do to compensate for a concerning lack of depth and some truly abysmal goaltending.
Plenty of hockey sickos went out of their way to tune into the late-night showdown that unfolded in San Jose on Thursday thanks to the borderline macabre nature of a game where the Sharks had the opportunity to tie the Oilers in the basement of the league standings with a victory.
The home team pulled out to a 1-0 lead at the end of the first period, and while the Oilers evened things up a few minutes into the second, San Jose eventually took a 3-1 lead and held off Edmonton’s desperate power play surge in the waning moments of the third to “improve” to 2-10-1 against a team that’s now sitting at 2-9-1.
After the final horn blew, a camera filmed Woodcroft leaving the ice alongside assistant coach Dave Mason and captured the former seemingly uttering the words “That’s probably about it” before the latter responded with a resigned “Yup.”
as jay woodcroft and dave manson walk off the ice after the oilers loss to san jose, woodcroft appears to say “that might be it” to manson, who appears to respond with “yup.” pic.twitter.com/Qd1b8fNfAX
— zach (@zjlaing) November 10, 2023
As of this writing, the Oilers haven’t made any announcements concerning Woodcroft’s fate, but if he ends up getting fired, it’s not going to be a huge surprise.