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

[BoldNewLettuce]

and shouldn't he also be judged on the firing of Krueger and subsequent hiring of Eakins?

 

[Captain Catatomic]

judged by whom?

 

[KCC]

What holes has he filled?

True. When you look at the bigger picture, it does seem like the team has more holes than before. I don't think that's really the case in some areas. The team doesn't get hemmed in all game anymore or out shot by wide margins on a nightly basis anymore either. And because of the size added, they can compete better against some bigger teams. Don't get me wrong, the team still gives up way too many grade A chances and still need better D and centers, but I do think the team has gotten better in those areas mentioned. They've also been in over 20 one goal games this season, but haven't been able to close out most of them. Improvements, just not when the score is close. If they can turn that around next season for example, I see a big leap forward.

MacT has said a few times already that there were quite a few players that he wanted to bring in the last 18 months on the job, but wasn't able to. So I guess you go to Plan B. I'd like to think this roster would look much different (probably for the better) if he landed all the players he was trying to go after.

Still disappointing that the team has regressed though in terms of wins and losses. It's funny though because I remember the media saying many times last season and even in the beginning of the season that the team played way better than their record indicates. I saw it, but it seems like this team just finds more ways to lose games. Win those games and suddenly many fans are saying the team has improved. lol

 

[BlowbyBlow]

Just to point this out...sather ALWAYS hired from within...with no interviews.

The point is pretty moot since most organizations hire from within or else people will leave your organization and have zero loyalty. This why i felt Nelson should have been offered the job before Eakins. Lets also remember lots of teams were interested in Eakins. So everyone yaps about the OBC...but eakins was an outside hire. I think, had this organization not fired so many coaches in such a short time before eakins...eakins would have been fired after the season last year.

I agree Renney should have never been fired. I dont believe he was going to be the coach that takes you to the cup finals...but he was what we needed until we got to that point. Also there is no telling if he could have eveolved to be that coach, had he -like an evolving player- been given the time. Personally i saw him as a good coach who could run his bench, set a tone in the dressing room, and hold people accountable.

As for scouting...sather let his main scout read the css reports from mexico as the basis of their scouting research. If it wasnt for players like gretzky...who promoted coffey and others he met during canada cups and wjhc then those early big drafts would have been barren for us as well.



HOWEVER MY ORIGINAL POINT STANDS...this is edmonton. Take a look around. Edmonton. The reason people come here...more money to be earned than elsewhere. When the money dries up and they can make the same anywhere else? They will leave. Hockey players are like anyone else...they want to be happyand have elite happy women and live their lifes in prosperity and lavish options for entertainment and relaxation and lots of sports and athletic activities.

Frankly i often feel sorry for players here...they have no real equals and instead they get alot of people that think they know the game and can do better because they like...play shinny and beer league...and can see the holes in their elite nhl level games. Their closest athletic comparison are part time cflers who drive frito trucks for a living. Now if they go to any american city they will have football, basketball, baseball, and they can slum down and chill with the amateur levels and collegiates who will be making eight figures soon. People like themselves. People they can relate to. Thats before you ever put the fact its edmonton *looks around* into the equation.

Plus edmonton had its time of prosperity and didnt diversify its economics (at a provincial level) so i imagine the next 24 months is going to look alot like an exodus. There way nothing here but money and now the money is drying up...the oil companies i believe will be suing for royalties back before they walk away from projects and jettison from this hole without so much as leaving a twenty on the nigt stand. And everyone who held their head up so high with their consumerism for the past decade and extending themselves is in for an introduction to 80s alberta. Just wait to see the mice eat eachother when the interest rates need to be raised.

The point is...edmonton is edmonton...dont bother looking at the ufa list...and never think any athlete will come here without a huge edmonton tax added to their market value.

Does anyone remember the huge offer we made to Lindros? Nedved? The list goes on. Players will take less money and pay a higher cost of living to be anywhere but here. Now...a guy like Roy...you might be able to get. A good depth centre who if he joins a true nhl hockey team wont have much of a leash before he sees press box time. Those teams will pay him 1-1.5 m, you better be offering 2.5 for him to be here and an extra year term...or else dont bother even starting the negotiating.

Well said, and really respect the polite discourse. I think my main point is if you look at the Raptors just a few years back Chris Bosh made a comment how it was just different up here (insinuating guys would rather play south of the border - all of a sudden they get a progressive G.M., a good coach, and now you see guys not wanting to go away, and they got cred with guys in the league

I mean you can't tell me Winnipeg or Calgary, Detroit, Buffalo even Columbus are just the greatest places (and while CBJ and Buffalo) have had there problems the other 4 places aren't shangrila (sp) and at this point in time there able to be successful.

Every year coaches come available (just recently Laviolette, Ruff, Trots), Gm (Jim Nill), management (Doug Armstrong) - a few years back.

The fact is new people can create change. What Lowe should have said is not any other team would wish for there roster - he should have said any other management group down to coaching would get more out of these player and be successful. Its just frustrating this is essentially (year 5 if you call Hall's draft year the rebuild) but it really is in that 5-7 range I always said once they traded Smyth and didn't sign Glencross, and Brodziak - they did a lot of lateral trades back then.

As for living here yea its a blue collar city but i tell you if your American (and trust me I know a few) this city offers other things like raising a family, good taxes, and your here maybe 9 months but your also on the road alot. Yea superstars have model wifes but this team is setting itself up through drafting to need mid level players and there not all into the same lifestyle and needs and wants as those guys.

 

[Burnt Biscuits]

The thing about this post Is while I agree (and I do agree at the predicament), I also disagree.

You ALWAYS have to put the right people who are going to make a ****** situation (in this case: place) better

Have they chosen the right leaders: Ference, Horcoff, Moreau - not exactly Chara or Toews or guys who bring others together. Horcoff basically mailed it in after his contract. Moreau arrogant self entitled s.o.b, Ference is a good guy but your not getting the ultimate alpha male - which this organization begs for a Doug Weight/Jason Smith captain.

Lets look at management. I am sorry ever since Sather this organization has always acted like a big shot, old boys club fraternity who reeks of narcissism and arrogance to "certain types of players" I mean think of this for a second - there was incidents of management mistreatment back to the days of guys like Todd Marchant who talked about it (I know long time ago but it was there) then the infamous Comrie situation, then of course Pronger (which you can side with management) but you had Laforge, Nichols, Lowe all saying **** in the media (the whole burning furniture incident) .

Then you seen how they would be disloyal to good guys like Glencross, Brodziak while at the same time trying to lure guys that didn't want to be here (Vanek, Hossa, Heatley, Nylander, ect)
- smack talked about Corey Perry (in the potential trade for Comrie)
- insulted Bobby Ryan (a player he knew nothing about personally/privately)
- Lowe tried to trade injured players to L.A.,
- 100,000 dispute over Ryan Smyth (franchise player)
- tried to play a injured player in Souray - these are little minor things in the grand scheme but players talk (remember players talk)

Finally they couldn't get the big fish so they started a rebuild while firing a generally well respected good coach (Tom Renney) fired another well to do - not a huge downside coach in Krueger (over skype no less) hired a equally arrogant guy in Eakins - setting the franchise back 2 years.

They hired (which there many things I will tend to steer clear of being psychic or foretelling) but we all knew Tambo was a lame duck G.M. his highest position/ranking in 10 years with Vancouver wasn't even a sniff at G.M, ; and whats he now a pro scout.

Bring back a guy in Scott Howson who was a completely horrible G.M in Columbus
- a G.M. that was led by this baffoon to say he's been on the job 18 months and inherited a mess (obviously not the masters fault who led the puppet (Tambo)
- a recently fired coach saying Craig will need at least 5 years to reroute the ship.

With regards to our captains I don't know what happened to Moreau, but when crap started going south and he didn't like the direction the team was heading in him and Staios became very bitter and a negative influence in the room and formed their old man clique dividing the room. Horcoff I actually think was a really good team guy and the young guys from Hall, Ebs, and Yak all said he was really helpful to them; he just isn't the kind of leader to take the bull by the horns and lead a team into battle or to give a rallying speech, or hold people in the room accountable; he was just a nice guy who everyone respected and felt they could talk to but not a real leader. Ference is also a nice guy and does a lot of community work, I don't think all the guys respect him all that much and he just isn't good enough to lead the team with play on the ice, I think he is the kind of guy to call people out and try to hold them accountable, but when everyone can see he can't get it done and has the same issues it just rings hollow.

Wasn't the furniture burning incident entirely made up?

I don't recall Lowe speak ill of Perry at all, my recollection is he just said he liked the Flyers deal better and if Comrie wanted to go there he'd have to buy his way out, to make up the difference; we all ate it up here as we wanted to stick it to a spoiled brat, but this should of been the red flag to tip us off on how petty and stupid the people running the franchise are.

It was Tambellini who tried trading two different injured player to L.A., I know some people think Tambellini was just a puppet, but people in the media have asked the question and it seems like he had a lot of self-autonomy regardless of whether or not people want to believe it. Do you think if Kevin had 100% control he'd let his brother get fired?

I haven't heard of us trying to trade Souray while injured, what I heard is Tambellini had a deal in place to trade Souray for Hartnell but pulled out; went looking for another deal only for Souray to turn around and injure himself a couple games later.

Tom Renney wasn't technically fired, just not re-hired because he would not cave to management demands on how much time our young guys should be playing.

Tambellini being passed over multiple times as GM despite being the assistant GM in Vancouver for a long time should of been a major red flag. I remember hearing an interview just shortly before we ended up hiring him and he was just praising the youth we had on our team and how promising he thought the future of our team was despite still working for Vancouver at that time, I think Lowe hired him because he was a good ass-kisser and just loves having people blow sunshine up his butt.

I don't think it is fair to characterize Howson as a horrible GM, despite how much I like Jarmo Kekalainen as a GM there is no way he would of been able to turn Columbus around that fast if Howson didn't atleast do some decent things to get them in a position for success. Howson is a poor GM who doesn't deserve to be an NHL GM, but horrible is a stretch he made the bad first trade where he acquired Carter at too high a price when he didn't want to be there, but he got a good return on Rick Nash and Dubinsky became the heart and soul leader of that team, plus picked up Bobrovsky for a song, and Foligno at a reasonable price.

What I got from Eakins comments on MacT is he was certain MacTavish could turn this team around and was emphasizing patience and indicating most GM's get 5 years to turn it around not just 18 months. I'm personally at the stage where I would be ok with him getting fired, but I'm not really chomping at the bit for it, he screwed up pretty bad, but has done some good things; I think there are a lot of areas in our organization that are deficient and he is relying on people for information like our pro scouts who are horrible, crap advisors in Lowe and Messier, and a sub-par amateur scouting staff and it makes it a lot harder to do your job properly. With our "forensic" analysis I'm hoping we will properly remedy some issues and hopefully MacT learns from his mistakes and does a better job next year, I'd cap him at 3 years if significant improvement does not occur. If Paul Fenton was interested in being our GM though, I'd be willing to part ways with him now, no one else though really interests me for the role.

I poured through GM history, there are a lot of GM's who only got 1 year but those were mostly interim GM's woh took the job on a temporary basis while a new GM was to be found. A couple GM's who stood out as being horrible got just 2 years and then the rest who had mixed results got the 3-5 year range.

 

[azashi]

Well, it's not looking good for MacT.

His hand-picked coach went 1-for-17 to finish his tenure here in Edmonton. MacT had defended him days before firing him, and if, as most believe, he was forced to fire him - are Mac's days numbered, now that Nelson is 6-6-2?

 

[Tarus]

Well, it's not looking good for MacT.

His hand-picked coach went 1-for-17 to finish his tenure here in Edmonton. MacT had defended him days before firing him, and if, as most believe, he was forced to fire him - are Mac's days numbered, now that Nelson is 6-6-2?

Short answer - no

Long answer - There is little evidence to suggest that any of Katz's incompetent cronies will face consequences for their franchise crippling mistakes while on the job.

 

[Seedling]

Short answer - no

Long answer - There is little evidence to suggest that any of Katz's incompetent cronies will face consequences for their franchise crippling mistakes while on the job.

So you're telling me that you have strong faith in the "forensic audit"?

 

[PaPaDee]

Short answer - no

Long answer - There is little evidence to suggest that any of Katz's incompetent cronies will face consequences for their franchise crippling mistakes while on the job.

Pretty much - the only hope of MacT or Lowe leaving is for them to feel so embarassed for all of their failings that they finally pull the plug themselves.

 

[The Nuge]

Well, it's not looking good for MacT.

His hand-picked coach went 1-for-17 to finish his tenure here in Edmonton. MacT had defended him days before firing him, and if, as most believe, he was forced to fire him - are Mac's days numbered, now that Nelson is 6-6-2?

Imo, Nelson is saving MacT's job. This is the "proof" that he's building a solid team, despite the major holes, and us apparently not even attempting to negotiate an extension with our best dman. That said, MacT deserves SOME credit, because this is a better team than Tambo put together (not that that's saying much)

 

[Tarus]

So you're telling me that you have strong faith in the "forensic audit"?

Oh no, I suspect there was a very thorough forensic audit.

There were probably many corsi stat pages opened, and many demands from Mactavish to the Oiler computer techs to zoom in.

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

Imo, Nelson is saving MacT's job. This is the "proof" that he's building a solid team, despite the major holes, and us apparently not even attempting to negotiate an extension with our best dman. That said, MacT deserves SOME credit, because this is a better team than Tambo put together (not that that's saying much)

It's not even clear that it is a better team once you account for the progression of young players.

 

[Tirefire]

At the last Oilers bored meeting:

Katz: "Bob, how is that forensic audit coming along?"
BobN: "Pretty good I think, KLown should have it done soon, eh KLown?"
KLown: "Yes, I am almost done judging things"
Katz: "How does it look KLown?"
KLown: "Well, MacT is being judged by his decision to hire Eakins, who set us back 3 years in our development"
BobN: "I heard on Eakins interview with TSN that our Korsi was up under his tutelage and now we are reaping the rewards, so thats good news!"
MacT: "And our new personnel is doing great!"
KLown: "Yeah, its not really the new coaching at all, its more the team is getting PDO and better puck luck"
Katz: "Geez guys I dont know, we looked like **** against Pittsburgh and Toronto"
MacT: "I think thats just the cyclical nature of the game, visually, we are much more improved"
KLown: "Yeah, thats where I am heading with this Darryl, I do believe Craigs on it"
Howson: "And Nikitin was just out of shape, he was playing much better before he got hurt...again"
BobN: "So Darryl it seems forensically we are visually pretty good"
KLown: "But I will have the full results soon. I have been busy working with Bakersfield on their marketing ideas because I think we might need some of those gimmicks to keep the new building full"
BobN: "Yes, we need to preach patience"
MacT: "Eakins said we need 5 years after all Darryl"
Katz: "How much do you think we will be able to charge over the 5 years guys?"
KLown: "Well the surveys went out yesterday, we are ranging to start at at least a 200% percent increase and we can inflate the tickets probably by 10% a year so 250% more after 5 years"
Katz: (rubbing his hands with glee) "Awesome. Just think how much revenue we will make in the playoffs!!!"
MacT: "Ummm. Probably wont be any playoffs for those 5 years Darryl. We are rebuilding the rebuild of the rebuild."
KLown: "But I have judged forensically that visually we will be better. We just need to keep on the same page guys, and make sure that we repeat this over and over to the media and fans. Eakins said that the more we repeat a lie the sooner it is believed."
Katz: "Patrick do you think we can charge 300% more then, I want to make as much money as I can if we are not in the playoffs"
Laforge: "I dont see why not? We can make a guilt campaign and threaten to move the team to Seattle or KC or Vegas and strong-arm the small businesses to pay for those $15000 Loge tickets. It works every time."
KLown: "And I have a free pass from the media in this town, we can basically do whatever we want Darryl"
Katz: "Thats why I love you guys so much. Now c'mon, lets go rolling in the money in the bank vault again!!!"
OBC: "YEAH!!!"
KLown: "I LOVE our meetings!!!"