Dallas Eakins..what went wrong?

[Seedling]

I would add something about making Ferrence captain

Don't even....

 

[ForeverJerseyGirl]

I would add something about making Ferrence captain

Good point. Another questionable Eakins decision. The list of his gaffes is very long.

 

[ForeverJerseyGirl]

What makes it worse is that the Toronto media spun this guy to look like a genius to the end that we were one of apparently 3 teams trying to hire him.

It just shows what impact the media can have. Eakins was hyped as a great coach even though his AHL resume isn't even that impressive, so that gave him NHL opportunities he clearly didn't deserve based on his coaching merit, not his sound byte generation skills.

 

[Bill Waters*]

What makes it worse is that the Toronto media spun this guy to look like a genius to the end that we were one of apparently 3 teams trying to hire him.

Eakins is a big analytics talker, but he doesnt know how to use the numbers. The media in TO love a good Corsi Queener.

 

[ARSix]

Good point. Another questionable Eakins decision. The list of his gaffes is very long.

Was this actually his decision? IIRC, they signed the guy on July 1 and he was named captain before training camp. Seems more like a management move to me.

I dunno, the Oilers were trending in a positive direction in terms of their actual play earlier this year but their goalies couldn't make a save if you held a gun to their heads. I would've given him the balance of the season. Part of the issue is the Oilers have been such a revolving door of coaches for so long that half their young guys never learned to play a single system, even a flawed one.

 

[Seedling]

Eakins is a big analytics talker, but he doesnt know how to use the numbers. The media in TO love a good Corsi Queener.

Apparently because we hired that other idiot blogger too. He who's name shall never be spoken of again in Edmonton.

 

[ForeverJerseyGirl]

Was this actually his decision? IIRC, they signed the guy on July 1 and he was named captain before training camp. Seems more like a management move to me.

It's possible that it was a management decision, not an Eakins' decision. Eakins would probably have at least had to give consent to it, though.

 

[Satoru Gojo]

He was an overhyped Toronto media product

 

[McPuritania]

True. MacT did say Eakins was the decision he'd be judged on. Of course there's no way MacT could have known then how slow ownership is to hand down judgement/how many times you can drop the ball before you get fired by the ragtag organization.

And in his most recent interview, MacT wouldn't give any credit to Todd Nelson for the turn around. He gives it all to his own roster moves which are now bearing fruit (What curious ****ing timing there Craig) and was raving over how great Dallas Eakins is.

Every time he opens his mouth, MacT just reaffirms how absolutely terrible he is at his job.

 

[Just A Retool]

We can probably make this conversation far more brief if we simply asked, "Dallas Eakins... what went right?"

 

[Whiston532]

Not really the topic. But a week or so after he got fired he came through my till at work and he looked like his whole world had come crashing down and had fit a 2 week bender into 10 days tops.

He was a personification of Oiler management. Not only terrible, in a position that they have because of borderline criminal level terrible reasoning, and virtually completely unsuccessful, but a god damn sideshow in the process.

 

[Tonka]

You can't say that Draisaitl was bad drafting because he wasn't a defenceman. Fleury was the top ranked defenceman after Ekblad and he went 7th. Fleury isn't lighting the world on fire either. And the year before they took Nurse over Nichushkin.

You can argue bad asset management, poor drafting in the later rounds or that they should have taken Bennett but to say they screwed up by not taking Fleury is just plain wrong. I want MacTavish fired but the only way to do that is to repeat the facts.

I was wrong about saying they should have taken a defenseman instead as it appears that class had a weaker defensive crop. So I should take that back.

 

[Crazy_Ike]

Dallas came in and tried to reinvent the wheel. His swarm style of play worked in the AHL because players there were slower and not as talented so if you just kept pressuring the guy with the puck, eventually they would make a mistake and turn it over. In the NHL, guys just flip it to the open man, causing insanely good scoring chances against. And Eakins absolutely refused to see this. He thought the problem was that the kids just didn't understand how to play his system, so practices consisted of lots of talking and leisurely skating. And then in games we'd bleed prime scoring chances because the team commonly had 3 and 4 players chasing one guy.

This is all 100% correct but it's important to understand WHY Eakins coached like this. Eakins, like many here, thought Corsi was EVERYTHING. Even his interview a couple weeks ago, he beamed with pride that the Oilers, under his guidance, had gotten their Corsi to 51%. He though that (like Oakland in Moneyball) it was just a matter of time before that translated into success. So he coached for it. Swarm defense is an attempt to prevent shot attempts against by stopping them before they happen. Works in the AHL where talent is so much lower, but NHL players just pass through it.

But coaching for Corsi is a path that leads straight into the abyss. NHL teams penetrate shot-prevent defenses with ease. People complain about the quality of Oilers goaltending but the truth is when you coach for Corsi you are giving up better quality chances than other teams. No one could have had good goaltending stats under the Oilers Corsi defense, not Price not Dryden not anyone.

There are numerous other coaches in the league now who laugh in their sleeves at the idea of coaching for shot attempt +/- (Babcock, Quenneville for two). Eakins never got it, though. And he went down in flames for not understanding the weakness of Corsi as a stat.

 

[missinthejets]

I think fundamentally he's a pretty good coach who tries to preach the right principles. I just think the situation in Edmonton was so far-gone that not even a Hall of Fame coach could have reeled things back in.

This isn't about Eakins failing to take the Oilers to the playoffs. Ralph Kreuger who was a rookie NHL coach got so much more out of the Oilers before Eakins. Nelson a rookie NHL head coach is getting so much more out of the team after Eakins. THAT is why Oiler fans are so anti Eakins. He made the team worse despite seeming like a better roster on paper. 2 coaches have similar results and Eakins has worse results and you're saying that it wasn't the coach? Nope sorry Eakins was trash. He talked a good game but he was unable to see the flaws in what he was doing and would not adapt. He coached the team he wished he had rather than the team he did have. He didn't put players in a position to succeed, he put players in a position and expected them to change their game to fit that position. That doesn't work. Nelson and Kreuger are so much better at recognizing what the players do well and focussing on that. Eakins only ever focussed on what players did wrong.

 

[MarkGio]

We can probably make this conversation far more brief if we simply asked, "Dallas Eakins... what went right?"

That's way too brief. It would involve a single post stating the following:

"I'unno? The locker room switched to Head and Shoulders Shampoo?"

 

[Roof Daddy]

Very well written post, but 100% nonsense from my POV.

Where should EDM have finnished in the standings during these years in your opinion? Last ok, where did they finnish? Last.

That's the problem. This is a very poorly constructed team by McTavish. And I know a cluster **** when I see one, been a Rangerfan for the last 30 years.

Actually, I thought the post you quoted was bang on. If anything, your suggestion is more nonsensical.

What did Kreuger have to work with? I'm not about to spin revisionist theory, I wasn't a Kreuger fan because I thought his D system and breakouts were not good and too complicated for a young team (he employed more of a zone type of D where guys constantly switched who they were defending and teams that cycled well absolutely owned us). What Kreuger did well though is have the respect of his players and ability to motivate them and maintain their confidence. Kreuger had a young team, with a GM that preferred to sell off assets than acquire them, and still managed to have them hovering around a playoff spot 2/3 through the season (it was a tough collapse at the end, but we still finished 24th).

Fast forward to MacT and Eakins entering the picture. MacT had the green light to be more active in free agency. He had the green light to trade future assets for a more established player (ie Perron trade). You can dissect the roster and say it wasn't playoff calibre and I wouldn't argue, but Eakins was given a much better roster and did far worse. Nearly every player regressed under Eakins. On a young team with a ton of potential, that's tough to do, but he did it.

An egomaniac too proud to admit his approach to the game did not work. Square peg, round hole, but through analytics and press conferences felt he could convince the round hole it's actually a square. Sad thing is, he duped our management, and that's the only people he had to convince to hit a pay day.

I would be shocked if he ever has a job in the league again (outside of whatever menial job/title he still has with the Oil while on the payroll).

 

[aemoreira1981]

He was pretty much doomed from the get go. A revolving door of coaches and they hire a rookie coach who preaches fitness and accountability....

Under Krueger...they barely missed the playoffs. The first mistake was firing him.

 

[Sleepy]

He's the modern day Pierre McGuire. He may never get another gig again.

 

[saillias]

Nothing went wrong. Edmonton hired him based on the hype stirred by Derren Dregger. It was funny becuase Canucks fans also wanted Dallas Eakins for some stupid reason.

Edmonton also need to stop going after rookie coaches at this point, and stop going after rookie GM's too.

Gillis came out of the interview and said "he's not ready."

based on what we know now, um yeah. holy crap the canucks veteran dressing room with keslers and burrows and bieksas would have eaten this guy alive.

 

[The Kingslayer]

the dude is so hollywood.

when he freaked out about hall getting water in his hair that pretty much summed up Dallas Eakins.

Well he was on that show so. He prolly should have focused more on being a coach instead of playing a Dr. on tv.

 

[Circulartheory]

Before, I was always a believer that no matter who was the coach, they were bound to fail with the roster that the Oilers had. So I felt Eakins were unfairly treated. But after reading a number of your posts, it is actually quite hilarious at some of the quirks Eakins had.

Donuts? Ping Pong? These are such tiny details that a normal person just wouldn't give notice to but he did and did so in a way that would rub the general public the wrong way.

Sounds like he forgot that mentoring/teaching/guiding has as much to do with coaching as producing stats (although he failed at that too).

And I am all for advanced stats, but like another post wrote, its about interpreting them in the proper context. Advanced stats will lead to wins, but advanced stats aren't wins on its own.

 

[Dallas Eakins*]

Living legend.

 

[Terry Yake]

Under Krueger...they barely missed the playoffs. The first mistake was firing him.

yeah

firing krueger was the biggest mistake they could have made

 

[bombers15]

He was the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers. That's what.

Meh, that's not really fair. Look at the record of the team before Eakins (under Kruger) and after Eakins (under Nelson). It's noticeably different.

It's not like we're lighting the world on fire now, but it's much better than under Eakins. He is a horrific coach, plus he lost the room.

 

[THall4]

Doomed from the beginning? I agree in that no coach would be able to turn the Oilers around in such little time.

What did Edmonton fans hate about Eakins specifically though?

Todd Nelson has done just fine.