My friend and newest contributor to this Oilers blog, The Dirtbag, made some very interesting and thought-provoking comments on the Twitter machine this morning regarding whether or not the Oilers should fire Todd McLellan at the end of the season or wait until next season.
The suggestion that the Oilers should keep McLellan and give him a “short leash” for 20 games next season is problematic for a few reasons.
- What’s the point of that? If the organization has lost confidence in him you cut bait now. Players will also know he’s on borrowed time.
- At the 20 game mark, if a team is, say, 7-10-3 or something, you’re out of the playoffs already. That’s a lost season. We can’t have that.
- There won’t be the same quality replacement coaches for the team moving forward during the season… The time to hire is after the season.
All three points make perfect sense in my opinion and if you listened to Craig Simpson and Bob Stauffer talking about what changes they thought the Oilers might make this off-season, they both agreed that it’ll probably be a lateral move that takes place instead of a clean sweep of the coaching staff. Meaning the assistant coaches are taking a vacation and new ones are brought in. Craig Simpson cited Mike Babcock having 12 assistant coaches in Detroit during his time there during the segment.
I’ve maintained this year that if something does happen that I don’t think it’ll be McLellan that gets the axe but it’ll be his associate coaches and the Oilers will bring in guys that will be ready to take over for McLellan when his time is up. Kris Knoblauch, Todd Nelson, Davis Payne, or Derek Laxdall. Paul Coffey’s name has been in the mix as well.
OILERS NEWS
Beer League Heroes – What Would You Do if You Were GM? – Imagine next week the Oilers are giving you the chance to become the next general manager of the Edmonton Oilers. What moves would you make? What changes would you institute to ensure that the Oilers would be a playoff team in 2018/19?
Beer League Heroes – Spoiled Fans (I’m Serious) – A certain portion of fans pretty much wanted the NHL to hand over the Stanley Cup once we won the lottery in 2015. It doesn’t work like that. Nothing is handed to you. Yes, we got extremely lucky but that’s not the finish line. That’s the starting gate.
The Cult of Hockey – Player grades, Games 71-80: Edmonton Oilers gained a little momentum, then promptly lost it – For just a little while there, Edmonton Oilers’ fans saw at least a glimpse of the team they’d been expecting in 2017-18.
The Cult of Hockey – Oilers coach Todd McLellan on TSN’s McKenzie’s list of coaches who could be gone soon – If the Oilers players themselves are still so firmly in McLellan’s camp, the Oilers have a keeper, but I wonder about that after this wretched season.
The Cult of Hockey – If Andrej Sekera Isn’t Healthy for Next Season, That Would be Horrid for the Oilers – In a season of bad news, Edmonton Oilers fans were this week given another kick in the shins — or perhaps a knock on the knee would be a better way to put it — with news that Andrej Sekera had “tweaked” his old knee injury and would miss the final two games of the season.
Oilersnation – WWYDW: Jesse Puljujarvi – Where does Puljujarvi fit with the Oilers long-term? What matters now is if he is a long-term solution in the organization, how should the team ensure he reaches his potential?
Oilersnation – The Oilers and their RFAs – The team has four pending restricted free agents and when you consider that none of them are true top-six forwards, it’s highly unlikely that we see all four of them back in Edmonton next September.
NHL NEWS & RUMORS
2018 NHL Free Agents: Scraping The Barrel – Part 2
NHL Rumors: Coaching Hot Seat, Tyler Seguin, and the Buffalo Sabres
NHL Draft: 2018 NHL Draft Lottery Odds
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