The Edmonton Oilers named Mike Babcock their head coach on Tuesday, the team announced, days after the NHL cleared the 63-year-old to return to coaching following an investigation into his brief, controversial tenure with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
A high-stakes hire in Edmonton
Babcock takes over a team that has come agonizingly close to a championship. The Oilers reached back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals in 2024 and 2025 before a first-round playoff exit this past season, ESPN reported. The franchise, built around captain Connor McDavid, has not won the Stanley Cup since 1990.
Babcock arrives with one of the most decorated résumés in the sport. Across 17 NHL seasons with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs, he won the Stanley Cup with Detroit in 2008 and coached Canada to Olympic gold in 2010 and 2014. Contract terms were not disclosed.
The league clears the way
Babcock's hiring was made possible only after the NHL completed a review of his time in Columbus. He had been hired by the Blue Jackets in 2023 but resigned in September of that year before coaching a regular-season game, amid criticism over his requests to look at personal photographs on players' mobile phones, according to CBC News and ESPN.
The NHL Players' Association had requested an investigation in light of Edmonton's interest in hiring him. On June 18, 2026, the league announced its conclusion. "Our investigation has concluded that, even in a light least favorable to Mr. Babcock, there is no current basis to restrict his employment in the League," the NHL said, in a statement reported by ESPN.
The players' union struck a more cautious tone. "While we found the allegations of Mike Babcock's conduct as the Columbus Blue Jackets' head coach very concerning, the League has decided that there is no current basis on which to restrict his employment," the NHLPA said. "Moving forward, we expect that Mr. Babcock will uphold the high standards required of NHL head coaches."
A complicated recent past
The Columbus episode was not Babcock's first high-profile exit. He was fired by the Toronto Maple Leafs in November 2019 after a poor start to the season, ending a four-year run. In the years after that dismissal, former players publicly questioned aspects of his coaching methods, scrutiny that resurfaced during the Columbus controversy.
For a franchise that has come within reach of a title in consecutive seasons, the appointment is a calculated bet: pairing a coach with a Stanley Cup pedigree, and a recent record of off-ice turbulence, with a roster widely seen as among the league's most talented. Whether that gamble pays off will be measured, as it always is in Edmonton, against the singular goal of ending a championship drought now stretching more than three decades.
