New Oil Kings GM wants to be ‘holistic’ when recruiting players

Former Oil Kings general manager Kirt Hill presented his successor Michael Chan with a new jersey.

The new head of the Edmonton Oil Kings’ hockey operations says he plans to “be creative” when recruiting players to the Western Hockey League club.

Michael Chan, who was named the Oil Kings’ president and general manager last week during a personnel shuffle by the Edmonton Oilers, said Tuesday that work to woo potential players to the team in the wake of last year’s seismic recruiting shift in the major junior hockey landscape means the team will have to take a “holistic look at everything” in the process of approaching them.

“We want to have them here as long as we can, and along with that, there are going to be opportunities, too, for players that may not have chosen the league before to come in and join us when some of those gaps might start to appear,” Chan told media at Rogers Place.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) lifted a long-standing ban to allow players in one of Canada’s three major junior leagues to compete at Division 1 U.S. colleges starting last season.

Chan was elevated into his new Oil Kings role last week, when the Oilers – who own the WHL franchise – made several changes to their hockey operations staffing, with his predecessor, Kirt Hill, moving into the role of Oilers’ assistant general manager of player procurement.

In Hill’s eight years at the Oil Kings helm, the team finished first in the Central Division four times and won a league championship in 2022.

Chan has been with the Oil Kings since 2017 and most recently served as their director of scouting for the last five seasons. Replacing him is Jamie Jackson, who has been working as an area scout for Edmonton since 2021.

The Oil Kings finished second in the Central Division this past season, and third overall in the Western Conference, before losing their first-round playoff series to the Saskatoon Blades.