Former Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft teams up with Flyers' John Tortorella

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Liam McCormick
September 20, 2024 (3:53 PM)

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Jay Woodcroft looked to be a promising young coach emerging in the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers, but the wheels fell off quickly and now he's on the outside looking in.

After being connected to numerous head coaching jobs last offseason, Woodcroft was passed over and is currently still unemployed heading into next year. However, he's getting one opportunity from one of the most prolific coaches in the NHL: John Tortorella.

According to reports from Frank Seravalli, Woodcroft has been invited to Flyers training camp. He is not joining the coaching staff, but Tortorella made the offer to allow Woodcroft to watch and learn.

Woodcroft coached the Edmonton Oilers to an impressive record of 79-41-13 and was a major improvement from Dave Tippett at the time. He was a popular leader in Edmonton, and arguably only needed to be fired because the Oilers goaltending was so poor to begin last year. However, once Knoblauch took over and turned things around quickly, it certainly didn't look too good on Woodcroft.

Jay Woodcroft himself is in a unique position as a head coach. He's not purely-old school tough guy, but he's not fully progressive analytics based coach either. Woodcroft is really a mix of both, and usually, teams decide to go in one direction or the other. Perhaps Woody can really learn something from Tort's coaching clinic, and turn it into a job offer during the season or next year.

Source for Woodcroft Stats: Hockey Reference - Jay Woodcroft