Edmonton Oilers have found their new general manager

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Ryan Hall
July 6, 2024 (9:03)

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Over the past few weeks, it's become clear that the Oilers have found their new general manager in Jeff Jackson, however, he has no interest in doing this job full time.

The president and CEO of the Oilers has been the interim general manager since it was announced that Ken Holland was no longer with the organization. This announcement was released after the Stanley Cup finals were over which meant Jackson needed to take control of the team and performed some of the most brilliant moves in recent memory.

In his short time as interim general manager, he managed an NHL draft and managed to craft the deal between the Flyers and the Oilers to get into the first round where they selected right winger Sam O'Reilly.

During the opening day of free agency, Jackson managed to land some big names including Victor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner, he also retained Mattias Janmark, Troy Stecher, Corey Perry and Connor Brown. He made the decision to buy out Jack Campbell and made a trade this evening in moving Ryan McLeod and Ty Tullio to the Sabres for Matt Savoie.

Prior to the Oilers, he spent his time as a player's agent but also was an assistant general manager and director of player operations for the Toronto Maple Leafs during the John Ferguson Jr era in 2007. He spent several years with the Leafs and even when Ferguson was fired, he remained with the team as the assistant GM with Cliff Fletcher. He left his post after their hiring of Brian Burke.

It's safe to say the fans are enjoying what they're seeing with Jackson in all of his moves, and many have taken to Twitter and to other forms of social media expressing their gratitude and enjoyment of all the changes the Oilers are making and asking him to take the job.

The team will need to make more moves as they're slightly over the cap at the moment but that comes with every team as they are allowed to be 10% over until puck drop of game one of the season.

It's likely he may hire from within like Keith Gretzky or Brad Holland to be the general manager but in the end, he will oversee the operations and have the final say in what the Oilers will do going forward.