TALKING POINTS: Holland & Knoblauch speak ahead of Stanley Cup Final | Edmonton Oilers

Knoblauch on his previous experience interviewing with current Panthers’ Head Coach Paul Maurice for a job in Winnipeg:

“We met in a hotel and talked for however long an interview is. But other than that, we haven’t really stayed in touch very much. I reached out to him I think it was 2017 when I was taking a job with the Philadelphia Flyers. Other than that, I don’t know if we’ve talked besides that. Before I met him, I had heard a lot of positive things about him. I knew somebody who’d worked with him, not with Winnipeg Jets and not as a coach, but I just knew him very well and he spoke very highly of him. So when I met him, everything that he had told me about him I felt was true. Very genuine and a very nice person. I reached out to him and he followed up and said that he’d help if I had any questions or something like that. But other than that, we haven’t spoken very much.

Holland on if there was added pressure trying to get the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final with Connor McDavid on their roster:

“Yeah, for sure. But I’ve also been at this for a long time. I think I said at another press conference, but you just don’t come in and wave magic wands. You’ve got to build. Certainly, Peter Chiarelli and his people did a great job in drafting Stu Skinner, Bouchard, McLeod, Vinnie Desharnais, and there’s one or two others. They needed some time to become NHL players, so you’re trying to put players in to get competitive; all the while behind the scenes you’re trying to believe that players are going to develop into bigger roles. So I think that’s what we do. Great job by Peter Chiarelli, and then as we’ve gone along, some things have turned out, some things haven’t turned out.

“But certainly, I knew we had a core. I knew we had Connor, I knew we had Leon. I was 3000 miles away. I knew they were great young players. I didn’t know a lot about them as people, but I learned very quickly that they had a lot of determination, a lot of pride and a lot of push. They were team players, they were motivated and that’s a massive start. And then along the way, there’s been some [adversity]. That Chicago series was the first year we were there, and it’s a summer series. In the playoffs, we lose three games to one. They got Duncan Keith and Toews. They’ve got veteran people. The next year we played Winnipeg, and we got swept. But three of the games were 0-0, 1-1, 2-2 and we were playing what I believed was playoff hockey.

“I saw what Scotty Bowman had done in Detroit in the mid-90s and the importance of learning to check, to compete, and that’s what Kris Knoblauch has done a great job with for our team. We’re getting more and more comfortable now in low-scoring games and we’re comfortable when there’s adversity. You think it’s 3-2 in Vancouver with four or five minutes to go and the place is going crazy how we were able to kind of hang on and get that win. Then, the other night against Dallas, it’s 2-1 and I think that’s on the players and being in those moments. I think it’s also on the job that Kris has done as coach.