Good to see that you've come around on this.
I don't want to turn this into a Mclellan thread but his player usage this season has been mind boggling to say the least. It seems as if him and Chia aren't on the same page.
I don't think Mclellan is a poor coach but he seems out of his element here. The Oilers need a coach with a fresh approach, an approach that is open to adjustment when the time is needed by recognizing when something is working and come up with creative ideas to fix it so in other words, no Sutter or Tippett like some posters seem to want. Then again, I wouldn't want another Eakins either who was known as something who had a "different" and "fresh" approach so I don't know what the answer is.
Ok, I guess I did turn this into a Mclellan thread haha. The mods can move this to the Fire Mclellan thread if they'd like.
Come around? heh, I never wanted McLellan and Woodcroft here. I've just tried to be patient with a status quo that I Never thought was good.
McLellan isn't a good coach, just that few of them exist at this level. Maybe a dozen in any given year. The NHL, as others have mentioned is all an OBC and whoever has experience gets more experience and whoever has to get experience at this level is seldom granted it without connections.
Like I said before I'm attracted to intelligent coaches. Cooper and Torts would be examples of this. Bowman and Sather in my book probably among the best coaches ever along with say Al Arbour and all great minds.
McLellan is the classic player turned coach that doesn't really know much else and hasn't bothered to. A hockey lifer. Not that he's very adaptable even given decades in the game. Thing is that McLellan is the same breed as Eakins, someone that thinks they know more than they probably do. Plus both being ex players, neither even being good players. (not that the latter means much though)
As soon as Eakins started self aggrandizing that when he was healthy scratched as a D all those games that he wasn't sitting up there eating popcorn I knew we had a self promoter. Some people are better at self promotion than anything else. Even to hear him narratively praise himself in that patting himself on the back way was strange because I thought about how players would take that kind of holier than thou narrative.
At least McLellan isn't anywhere near as annoying.
