The NHL coaching industry is a tough one. Year after year, coaches are fired and hired with alarming regularity. So any time a coach can get a modicum of job security, you can’t fault them for lunging to get it.
In the past few days, the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames re-committed to their coaches by signing them to multi-year contract extensions, but the expectations for Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch and Flames counterpart Ryan Huska are significantly different.
The first Alberta coach to get an extension this week was Huska, who agreed to a two-year contract extension on Thursday. The 50-year-old nearly steered Calgary into a Stanley Cup playoff spot last season, Huska’s second as Flames coach. Huska improved the Flames’ record by three wins in 2024-25, but he’s still very much part of a Calgary franchise that is trying to retool on the fly.
So the expectations for Huska are (a) to keep the Flames competitive, and (b) to integrate Calgary’s young players into the mix and set the table for a new generation of Flames players. He’s now under contract through the 2027-28 campaign, so Huska has a lot of landing strip to get the job done.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch got an extension of his own. The 47-year-old received a three-year extension, lasting through the 2028-29 season. Knoblauch has come agonizingly close to guiding the Oilers to a Cup, making it to the Cup final for the past two years.
His job is to win and win now, and he has less time to stick the landing than Huska does. The reality of the coaching profession is such that both Knoblauch and Huska know that failure to improve will almost assuredly cut short their time behind the bench.
That’s the main takeaway here. The history of modern-day coaching at the NHL level is littered with examples of coaches who never fulfill the full term of their contract after being fired by their employer when they are unable to deliver great things. Having the financial security of a long-term extension is great for coaches, but that doesn’t reduce the pressure they face to produce.
There’s always a shiny new coaching toy available for NHL GMs to be intrigued by, and the longer you go without major success as a coach, the easier it is for teams to move on from you.
Time will tell whether the Flames and Oilers were right to extend Huska’s and Knoblauch’s contracts, but handing out an extension tells your players that their coach isn’t a lame-duck coach, and that’s an important message to send in both these examples.
What it doesn’t do, though, is guarantee any one coach they’ll be running things in their current city for the long haul. When you win a Cup, you can assure yourself of regular coaching work for years to come, but even then, some Cup-winning coaches eventually have to move on to a different team.
Coaching is a zero-sum profession that rewards positive results and punishes negative results. Edmonton and Calgary have seen enough positives from Knoblauch and Huska to provide the security every coach is looking for. They now have the assurance they’ll be well-compensated for a good long while, but the day-to-day pressures on them will continue as long as they’re working in that role.
That constant pressure is a built-in part of the job, and if you don’t acclimate well to it, you’re going to be out of work sooner than later.
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