"I'll be judged on that decision." - MacT after hiring Eakins

[azashi]

So it's a little early to have a definitive answer, but in 6 games flying solo, Todd Nelson has almost half as many wins (3) as Eakins managed in 31 games (7).

The question is, should Nelson manage a .500 or so record (or God forbid, a playoff-pace) for the rest of the season, should MacT take himself out of all decision-making in the future?

He's made good bets and bad bets, like any GM, and even the bad bets were for the most part defensible. However, he did fire the first coach in years to show progress with the roster, a coach who did so in a tough schedule, and replaced him in an ugly fashion with Dallas Eakins who would go on to lead an improved roster to one of the worst records in franchise history.

At the time of the hire, MacTavish said “In my mind, faced with this set of circumstances, it was the right decision, I stand by that decision and I’ll be judged on that decision."

Upon Eakins' completion of a disastrous first season, the Oilers chose to keep him as coach for the simple reason that they'd already burned through more or less a coach per year for about 6 years. The players, the bloggers, and the media gave their token approval of such thinking, and once again when the season started, disaster struck. The Oilers were now on pace for their worst record in franchise history, period, and ranked behind Buffalo which was the can't-miss bet for last place in the league in preseason rankings.

In terms of roster decisions, there's a lot to question about with MacT, specifically the lack of depth at centre and the continuing fascination with thrusting raw rookies into prominent roles, but there is a great deal to be said for his willingness to make deals and try to improve the team through trades or signings. His deals for Perron, Roy, and Henderson are clear winners. Even when he shipped out Perron, he still got decent value in the short- and long-term, managing to snag a 1st round pick in what is looking like a very deep draft. This is doubly impressive when you consider that Perron was having his worst year since his rookie season and clearly unhappy on the team.

That said, the choice of Eakins as coach is starting to look like the fundamental decision at the heart of the unmitigated disasters that are the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 seasons, in increasingly stark relief to what Todd Nelson has delivered, that one has to wonder if this decision alone is enough to have MacTavish replaced. Given that 10 days prior to Eakins being fired, MacT had given him a show of support, it seems as if someone higher in the hierarchy made the decision for our general manager.

Is this the end of the line? Should he, and will he, as he pronounced "be judged on that decision"?

Click to read more...

 

[McShogun99]

#craigsonit

 

[McDeathbyCheerios*]

If MacT can fix his mistakes, learn for them and get better from here then I think he will be alright. Eakins was a rookie mistake from a rookie gm. If he is smart att he trade deadline, it will be alright.

 

[The Bored Man]

There is no doubt that management must be purged.

There is no doubt that they have jobs for life under Katz' ownership.

 

[McJeety McJeet]

No doubt in my mind that MacT was forced by someone above him to fire Eakins. We'll see what happens with this team for the rest of the year. I'm going to track wins/losses starting from game 42 to game 82 (so basically starting now). I'm worried that Nelson is still not the best available coach but will look so much better in comparison to Eakins that he'll be given the job. We got the last coach so wrong that we need to make sure the next guy is better than average.

 

[Titsuple]

I just hope MacT stays clear of anything or anyone that comes out of the toronto maple leafs org.

 

[gooilgo]

I just hope MacT stays clear of anything or anyone that comes out of the toronto maple leafs org.

Yep, that worked out well, Eakins, Acton, Hamilton, Acton, Brown, Scrivens, Mark Fraser, Aulie

......jeez

 

[McDeathbyCheerios*]

Yep, that worked out well, Eakins, Acton, Hamilton, Acton, Brown, Scrivens, Mark Fraser, Aulie

......jeez

Aulie has been a very capable #7 d and Scrivens has looked great at times. The rest? Hot garbage.

 

[bolobow]

In terms of roster decisions, there's a lot to question about with MacT, specifically the lack of depth at centre and the continuing fascination with thrusting raw rookies into prominent roles, but there is a great deal to be said for his willingness to make deals and try to improve the team through trades or signings. His deals for Perron, Roy, and Henderson are clear winners. Even when he shipped out Perron, he still got decent value in the short- and long-term, managing to snag a 1st round pick in what is looking like a very deep draft. This is doubly impressive when you consider that Perron was having his worst year since his rookie season and clearly unhappy on the team.

MacT needs to go, plain and simple.

 

[beaterson]

I don't buy the whole "he's made mistakes like any GM would, and now he's going to learn from them" line of thinking. He's a professional General Manager of an NHL team. Keeping Eakins alone shows how in over his head he is, especially when a bunch of schmoes like us would have almost unanimously pulled the plug after half a season.

Sorry Craig, you gotta show what you can do straight out of the gate, and you did just that, showing that you're not a capable NHL GM. Please resign. You could always get a job as a cashier at the Rexall on Jasper Ave, I hear they're hiring and you've got connections.

 

[McDNicks17]

MacT was inexperienced and arrogant.

The team's play with Nelson and Roy should be a big wake up call for him.

Only time will tell if he's too arrogant to learn from it.

 

[Burnt Biscuits]

I agree Nelson's body of work is small right now but he has done way better than I expected, not simply in terms of results but what we are seeing on the ice is like chalk and cheese compared to the Eakins era.
The hiring of Eakins and the failure to correct that disaster of a hire should mean that MacT has no future as GM at this club.
I fully expect to see further improvements under Nelson including the PP which has stopped bleeding goals against but still not firing on all cylinders.
Sadly we have wasted 2 years of the development of this team due to MacT and Eakins.

I have been a MacT defender, but he has made enough mistakes this off-season that I'm no longer married to the idea of keeping him on as GM, but I wanted to see if people that are generally characterized as being good GM's made the right 1st coaching hire when they took the reigns of the club over.

Peter Chiarelli 1st coaching hire

• Dave Lewis 35W- 41L- 6 OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential change= -24

Dean Lombardi 1st coaching hire

• Marc Crawford 59W- 84L- 21OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential= -35

Lou Lamoriello 1st coaching hire

• Jim Schoenfeld 50W- 59L- 15T
  prior year to first year goal differential= -43 (he was actually hired mid-season so I had to use the combined goal differential between him and the prior coach for the season before as the baseline)

Steve Yzerman 1st coaching hire

• Guy Boucher 97W- 78L- 20 OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential= +50 (although it should be noted the season directly after he was -46 worse in this metric and then part way through the next season he was fired after a poor start)

Marc Bergevin 1st coaching hire

• Michel Therrien 101W- 54L - 15 OTL (and counting)
  prior year to first year goal differential= +53 (this guy is probably the best coach in the league at turning a losing club around)

Names that I'm sure people are like why isn't that GM on the list Ken Holland actually had Scotty Bowman hired when he took the reigns as GM and Stan Bowman already had Quenville when he was hired as GM. Eakins stands pretty clearly at the top of the cream of the crap coaches, but none of these first coaching hires was good aside from Therrien and I'd consider them all good general managers (although Lamoriello is slipping). You're first coaching hire doesn't necessarily paint the clearest picture if you are or aren't going to become a good GM. I'd be more concerned about naming players like Gagner or Justin Schultz as part of the core as bigger red flags.


I posted this before in the Nelson thread, but it seems relevant here as well. MacT not canning Eakins sooner is an issue and I half suspect he only ended up doing so due to pressure from elsewhere in the organization likely Nicholson, but if he learns from the experience he still has the potential to become a good GM.

 

[gooilgo]

Aulie has been a very capable #7 d and Scrivens has looked great at times. The rest? Hot garbage.

...and neither Aulie or Scrivens came directly from the TML organization! Even so Aulie's best quality is getting his face punched and Scrivens is a good #2

 

[Replacement*]

Good $ quote there OP.

That speaks enough in itself.

If this org had accountability. Which it still doesn't but we can hope.

 

[Replacement*]

MacT was inexperienced and arrogant.

The team's play with Nelson and Roy should be a big wake up call for him.

Only time will tell if he's too arrogant to learn from it.

Nelson has shown in two weeks here that he knows more about winning than MacT and Mr. 6rings.

They'll spin it into some masterplan if Nelson continues his ways here. Even though he seemed never to have been part of the plan here.

 

[gooilgo]

I have been a MacT defender, but he has made enough mistakes this off-season that I'm no longer married to the idea of keeping him on as GM, but I wanted to see if people that are generally characterized as being good GM's made the right 1st coaching hire when they took the reigns of the club over.

Peter Chiarelli 1st coaching hire

• Dave Lewis 35W- 41L- 6 OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential change= -24

Dean Lombardi 1st coaching hire

• Marc Crawford 59W- 84L- 21OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential= -35

Lou Lamoriello 1st coaching hire

• Jim Schoenfeld 50W- 59L- 15T
  prior year to first year goal differential= -43 (he was actually hired mid-season so I had to use the combined goal differential between him and the prior coach for the season before as the baseline)

Steve Yzerman 1st coaching hire

• Guy Boucher 97W- 78L- 20 OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential= +50 (although it should be noted the season directly after he was -46 worse in this metric and then part way through the next season he was fired after a poor start)

Marc Bergevin 1st coaching hire

• Michel Therrien 101W- 54L - 15 OTL (and counting)
  prior year to first year goal differential= +53 (this guy is probably the best coach in the league at turning a losing club around)

Names that I'm sure people are like why isn't that GM on the list Ken Holland actually had Scotty Bowman hired when he took the reigns as GM and Stan Bowman already had Quenville when he was hired as GM. Eakins stands pretty clearly at the top of the cream of the crap coaches, but none of these first coaching hires was good aside from Therrien and I'd consider them all good general managers (although Lamoriello is slipping). You're first coaching hire doesn't necessarily paint the clearest picture if you are or aren't going to become a good GM. I'd be more concerned about naming players like Gagner or Justin Schultz as part of the core as bigger red flags.


I posted this before in the Nelson thread, but it seems relevant here as well. MacT not canning Eakins sooner is an issue and I half suspect he only ended up doing so due to pressure from elsewhere in the organization likely Nicholson, but if he learns from the experience he still has the potential to become a good GM.

Is the trait of stubbornness or refusal to correct his mistakes something that can be fixed in MacT? I don't think those are things that can be learned. That's in his DNA. Just fire his ass.

 

[Tarus]

I have been a MacT defender, but he has made enough mistakes this off-season that I'm no longer married to the idea of keeping him on as GM, but I wanted to see if people that are generally characterized as being good GM's made the right 1st coaching hire when they took the reigns of the club over.

Peter Chiarelli 1st coaching hire

• Dave Lewis 35W- 41L- 6 OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential change= -24

Dean Lombardi 1st coaching hire

• Marc Crawford 59W- 84L- 21OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential= -35

Lou Lamoriello 1st coaching hire

• Jim Schoenfeld 50W- 59L- 15T
  prior year to first year goal differential= -43 (he was actually hired mid-season so I had to use the combined goal differential between him and the prior coach for the season before as the baseline)

Steve Yzerman 1st coaching hire

• Guy Boucher 97W- 78L- 20 OTL
  prior year to first year goal differential= +50 (although it should be noted the season directly after he was -46 worse in this metric and then part way through the next season he was fired after a poor start)

Marc Bergevin 1st coaching hire

• Michel Therrien 101W- 54L - 15 OTL (and counting)
  prior year to first year goal differential= +53 (this guy is probably the best coach in the league at turning a losing club around)

Names that I'm sure people are like why isn't that GM on the list Ken Holland actually had Scotty Bowman hired when he took the reigns as GM and Stan Bowman already had Quenville when he was hired as GM. Eakins stands pretty clearly at the top of the cream of the crap coaches, but none of these first coaching hires was good aside from Therrien and I'd consider them all good general managers (although Lamoriello is slipping). You're first coaching hire doesn't necessarily paint the clearest picture if you are or aren't going to become a good GM. I'd be more concerned about naming players like Gagner or Justin Schultz as part of the core as bigger red flags.


I posted this before in the Nelson thread, but it seems relevant here as well. MacT not canning Eakins sooner is an issue and I half suspect he only ended up doing so due to pressure from elsewhere in the organization likely Nicholson, but if he learns from the experience he still has the potential to become a good GM.

Couple of points.

Chiarelli/Lewis - wasn't a good fit for Boston after one year, so rather than worry about the optics or dig in, Chia fired him and went in a different direction

Dean Lombardi - His first job was with the San Jose Sharks back in 96, and his first hiring was a terrible coach by the name of Al Simms. He wasn't an Eakins level of a disaster, but unhappy players, poor performances, rumors of egotistical behavior and rifts surrounding the team due to an arrogant coach. Lombardi fired his ass, and hired Darryl Sutter after one year, rather than drag it out.

So the problem isn't that Mactavish made a bad hire, the issue is that Mactavish made a terrible hire and was completely incapable of identifying and dealing with the problem that was afflicting the team. A month before he was forced to fire Eakins, he was telling everyone that Eakins was going to coach this team for 10 years. At the firing press conference, he stated outright that he thought Eakins was doing everything right, but the results weren't there.

So actually comparing other GM first hires isn't all that relevant, what's relevant is what they did when those hires went badly - and Mactavish comes out very badly in that regard, especially when you factor in he seems completely oblivious to the negative influences on the team.

 

[Burnt Biscuits]

By Henderson, I think you mean Hendricks, who is also great. That was a good trade (Dubnyk was terrible), but only cause MacTeakins absolutely sewered Dubnyk's value (as they have with 5 other goalies the last 1.5 seasons). Is Dubnyk as bad as MacTeakins made him out to be? No, he is playing just fine in Arizona and deserves to be a starting goalie again on merit (he is decisively outplaying Mike Smith).

MacT needs to go, plain and simple.

I think Sean Burke is the perfect goalie coach for Dubnyk and I don't think he would experience the same kind of success anywhere else, aside from a trapping team with a great d-core. I've always called Dubnyk a poor man's Sean Burke going back to the day he was drafted, they are made for one another, Mitch Korn is one of the best goalie coaches in the world and he wasn't able to turn Dubnyk around and essentially gave up on him. I'm sure if he stayed here things would be just as toxic, if not more so.

 

[Up the Irons]

Good OP

Mact replaced a coach that was doing relatively well (Kruger), or at least didn't have time to prove he was bad.

Usually (only), you replace a coach when he is the reason the team is losing, or if they are losing because they've tuned him out. You don't play the coaching change card till its time. Mact didn't do that, then.

Last month he did do that; skidded a coach that was the problem, albeit late.

Now, it appears the players are responding to Nelson. If they finish the season strong, and Mact subsequently decides to replace Nelson, that will the second time he changes coaches when it is not called for.

If it fails, he's gone.

so, basically, the Eakins hire/fire isn't his last straw.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

I'm not sure if MacT had actually made a decision that wasn't ultimately detrimental to the present and future of the team.
And he's made a lot of moves.

He hasn't done anything at all to show he's capable at succeeding in his role.

 

[Spawn]

MacT was inexperienced and arrogant.

The team's play with Nelson and Roy should be a big wake up call for him.

Only time will tell if he's too arrogant to learn from it.

He's also a poor judgement of talent and the roster in general. He still went into the season with 2 NHL centers. And 2 back-up goalies. And nothing even close to anyone resembling a top pairing defenseman. He still forced a woefully ill-prepared 19 year old rookie into the lineup when it was pretty damn clear out of training camp he wasn't ready.

The arrogance only becomes an issue because it takes him way too long to correct his mistakes. But the initial issue of terrible decision after terrible decision is still always going to be here.

I'm shocked there are still people in this thread and this forum that are willing to give him more time. The MacT hiring may end up being the worst blow this franchise has seen in two decades.

 

[Tekneek]

No doubt in my mind that MacT was forced by someone above him to fire Eakins.

Could be. I don't care that much, really. It had to be done. I like the moves MacTavish has made since firing Eakins. If a corner has been turned, then that is great.

I'm worried that Nelson is still not the best available coach but will look so much better in comparison to Eakins that he'll be given the job. We got the last coach so wrong that we need to make sure the next guy is better than average.

No need to worry. I don't care about having the best coach available, but the right coach for the roster of players that we have.

 

[Tekneek]

I'm not sure if MacT had actually made a decision that wasn't ultimately detrimental to the present and future of the team.

He fired Eakins. Yes, he hired him, but he also fired him. Firing him cannot possibly be detrimental, can it?

 

[McDNicks17]

He's also a poor judgement of talent and the roster in general. He still went into the season with 2 NHL centers. And 2 back-up goalies. And nothing even close to anyone resembling a top pairing defenseman. He still forced a woefully ill-prepared 19 year old rookie into the lineup when it was pretty damn clear out of training camp he wasn't ready.

The arrogance only becomes an issue because it takes him way too long to correct his mistakes. But the initial issue of terrible decision after terrible decision is still always going to be here.

I'm shocked there are still people in this thread and this forum that are willing to give him more time. The MacT hiring may end up being the worst blow this franchise has seen in two decades.

I don't want to give him more time. I just think he will be.

I'm trying to take the only possible positive in that hopefully MacT's been ***** slapped by reality and actually figures it out.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

He fired Eakins. Yes, he hired him, but he also fired him. Firing him cannot possibly be detrimental, can it?

There is a strong feeling that Nicholson was actually responsible for his firing, I guess we'll never know.

But does firing Eakins even count if he was the one that hired him and kept his job as long as he did? The whole Eakins experience was possibly the most detrimental facet of this 'rebuild'