Speculation on where former Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland will go next was rampant over the summer and it looks like we finally have an answer.
While many thought the longtime GM would get back in the saddle with another NHL team, particularly Utah after he was spotted at the team’s training camp, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
The NHL sent out a press release this morning announcing that they have officially hired Holland as a consultant for the league’s Hockey Operations Department.
“We are delighted to welcome Ken to NHL Hockey Operations, where he will provide invaluable insight from his decades in the game as a player, scout and executive. He offers unmatched expertise in a wide range of areas,” Colin Campbell, the NHL’s Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations, said in the release.
According to The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun, Holland is currently at the general manager meetings in Toronto.
Ken Holland is here at GMs meeting in Toronto today. He’s consulting with NHL Hockey Ops.
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) November 12, 2024
The 69-year-old executive would fit the requirements to be a consultant for the league’s hockey operations department. Holland spent a total of 22 seasons as the GM of the Detroit Red Wings between 1997 and 2019, winning three Stanley Cups in that span, as well as another five seasons as the GM of the Oilers, coming a win shy of another Stanley Cup last season.
His time in Edmonton is viewed as a bit of a mixed bag for most Oilers fans. While he oversaw two teams that made long playoff runs and the highly successful trade for Mattias Ekholm, he also locked the team into one of the league’s worst contracts in Darnell Nurse and had a hard time managing the team’s salary cap situation.
While the team came close to winning it all last season, the Oilers decided not to renew Holland’s contract and instead replaced him with ex-Chicago Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman.
It’s unclear whether this new NHL gig is what Holland had in mind for his long-term future in hockey or if he hopes that this could be a jumping-off point to land another GM job.
This is the first season since 1997 that Holland was not in charge of a team, and only time will tell if that will be the new normal from now on.