Every franchise has a face. For the modern Tulsa Oilers, it is the man behind the bench. Rob Murray arrived in Tulsa in 2017, and the 2026-27 season will be his tenth running the team as head coach and director of hockey operations. In that time he has turned a club that had rarely won in the ECHL into a regular playoff contender — and climbed into the league’s all-time wins leaders along the way.
Rob Murray at a glance
- Role: Head coach and director of hockey operations, Tulsa Oilers
- In Tulsa since: 2017-18
- Born: Toronto, Ontario
- NHL draft: 61st overall, 1985
- Playing career: 16 pro seasons, including 107 NHL games
- Honors: AHL Hall of Fame (2017), 2014 Kelly Cup champion as a coach, 2012 John Brophy Award
The player: an AHL legend
Before he coached anyone, Murray was the kind of player every minor-league coach wants. Drafted 61st overall in 1985, he went on to play 16 professional seasons in the NHL, AHL and IHL. His NHL time — 107 games with Washington, Winnipeg and Phoenix — was the shorter part of the story. His real home was the American Hockey League.
Murray played 15 AHL seasons and more than 1,000 games, finishing with 473 points (161 goals and 312 assists). He captained four different AHL franchises and wore the “C” for the Canadian team at the 1997 AHL All-Star Classic. The Springfield Falcons retired his No. 23, and in 2017 he was inducted into the AHL Hall of Fame. Leaders are often made in the minors, and Murray’s playing résumé reads like a definition of one.
The coach: from Providence to Alaska
Murray started coaching with the AHL’s Providence Bruins in 2003-04 and became their head coach in 2008-09, leading them to the Eastern Conference Finals in his first season.
His breakthrough came in the ECHL with the Alaska Aces. In Anchorage, Murray built one of the most consistent teams in the league: the Aces won three straight Brabham Cups as regular-season champions and captured the 2014 Kelly Cup, the ECHL championship. In 2012 he received the John Brophy Award as the league’s coach of the year.
The Tulsa years
When Murray took over in Tulsa, the Oilers were still finding their feet in the ECHL after joining in 2014. It did not take long to change that.
2018-19: the breakthrough
In his second season, the Oilers won 42 games and earned 90 points, captured the Mountain Division — the franchise’s first division title of the ECHL era — and came within one game of the Kelly Cup Final, falling to Toledo in seven games in the Western Conference Final. Murray was named ECHL General Manager of the Year.
Back-to-back playoffs
Under Murray, Tulsa reached the postseason in three of four seasons through 2024-25, including back-to-back appearances for the first time in the team’s ECHL history. The 2024-25 squad won 40 games, earned 88 points and set a franchise record with 22 road wins.
An ECHL milestone
By spring 2025, Murray had 491 regular-season ECHL wins, tied with John Marks for fifth in league history, and he holds the longest active streak of consecutive seasons behind an ECHL bench. In May 2025, the Oilers extended his contract through the 2026-27 season.
What defines a Murray team
Murray’s clubs tend to share a few traits. They lean on veterans who know the league — players like Tyler Poulsen, who has stayed in Tulsa for years — and they rarely beat themselves. His teams also travel well; that record for road wins was no accident. And because he also runs hockey operations, the roster usually looks like it was built for a specific style rather than assembled at random.
Why the 2026-27 season matters
The 75th season of Oilers hockey also happens to be the final season of Murray’s current contract. After a 2025-26 campaign that ended with a strong finishing kick, a return to the playoffs would add another chapter to one of the most successful coaching tenures in the franchise’s long history.
Read more: our season-by-season history of the Oilers in the ECHL, our profile of rookie Max Itagaki, our 2026-27 Oilers season preview and the history of hockey in Tulsa.
Correction, Oct. 23, 2026: An earlier version of this profile said the 2018-19 Oilers won 43 games and that their division title was the franchise’s first since 1975-76. The team won 42 games, according to the club’s 2019 playoff release, and we could not verify the 1975-76 comparison, so it has been removed.
