Sam Gagner's dad could replace Ken Holland as next Oilers GM: report
The future of the Edmonton Oilers is not exactly clear at the moment.
Though the team brought in Jeff Jackson over the summer to be the new CEO of hockey ops, it has been assumed for some time that this will be the last year that veteran executive Ken Holland will serve as the team’s general manager.
The 68-year-old is in the final season of his contract with the Oilers and there has been speculation that Holland will retire at the end of the season. If that winds up being true, the Oilers will be forced to find a replacement to help steer the ship during a critical time for the team, as both Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid are nearing the end of their respective contracts.
The initial succession plan was speculated to have included former Oilers defenceman-turned-executive Steve Staois eventually taking over the team. However, that plan was taken off the table when Staois defected to the Ottawa Senators, where he is now serving as both the president of hockey operations and the interim GM.
Now, a new name has popped up, with Toronto Sun reporter Steve Simmons mentioning player-agent Dave Gagner as a potential candidate to be the next GM of the Oilers.
“GM Ken Holland will be gone at the end of the season — his call — and I wouldn’t be surprised if Dave Gagner, whose son plays for the Oilers and is another former McDavid associate and a close Jackson friend, is brought in to be Oilers GM,” Simmons wrote.
The obvious connection between the Oilers and Gagner is the fact that he is the father of current Edmonton forward Sam Gagner. The 58-year-old is currently a player-agent for Wasserman Hockey, an agency that was founded by Jackson.
As it stands, Gagner has two clients who are on the Oilers roster in Evan Bouchard and Connor Brown. Gagner has previously worked with the Vancouver Canucks as their director of player development between 2008 and 2013.
The hiring would be on-brand for Edmonton. When the team decided to fire former Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft, it opted to replace him with Kris Knoblauch, who had never been a head coach in the NHL before.
It would also mark the continuation of a recent trend of player-agents being hired as top executives among NHL teams, along with Jackson in Edmonton and Kent Hughes being hired as the GM of the Montreal Canadiens in 2022.