Hitchcock speaks for the first time after being dismissed by Oilers

At yesterday’s press conference in which Longtime Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland was unveiled as the next GM of the Edmonton Oilers it was also confirmed that veteran head coach Ken Hitchcock would NOT be behind the bench for the team in 2019-20.

Immediately following the announcement Hitchcock made an appearance on Prime Time Sports with Bob McCown where he opened up about his conversations with both Holland and Oilers CEO Bob Nicholson.

“It wasn’t tough on me, to be honest with you. I went in last year with [former Oilers GM] Peter [Chiarelli] to help Peter and help the Oilers in particular and I knew it was year-by-year and I told them, ‘If you decide to move on from me, I want to help,’” said Hitchcock, whose official title in the organization has yet to be determined. “Obviously Edmonton’s my hometown, the team means the world to me, the success of the team means everything to me, and I knew I couldn’t coach forever and I wanted to help in some way.”

It’s fair to say that Hitch saw the move coming, but that he still feels like he can help even if he’s not on the bench or on the ice at practice.

“When they made the decision that they were going to change both the general manager and the coach, I fully understood that but I want to work. I want to help, I want to work, I want to do whatever I can to continue to help the team,” said Hitchcock. “I think I’ve got a lot to offer, especially on player evaluation and pro player evaluation and free agents and things like that. I know the league, as well as anybody or any coach and I, want to be able to help put this thing back on the track and help Kenny [Holland].”

So, how can Hitch help? What’s his plan? The Oilers have two elite talents in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, in Hitch’s opinion they need to do a better job of supporting those two players.

“Now we’ve got to look for people who make them better, and I think there’s a lot of those players in the National Hockey League that can really help teams and they’re littered right throughout the whole league, every team’s got them,” said Hitchcock.

“What we need to help ourselves with is we need the role players and the depth players to be zero maintenance,” Hitchcock said. “We need those players to come in and us not spend 30 seconds worrying about whether they’re going to come and play. That’s my opinion, is that the players that come in to help this team, they have to bring it every day so that it opens up space so that we get more room for our top guys.”