Appearing on
the podcast with Eklund the other day I was asked about whether Dallas Eakins was on the hot-seat this year. Ultimately I think the answer to that is “No” but there’s no such thing as a safe job amongst NHL coaches.
If you take a look back at the final 62 games the Oilers went 25-30-7 for 57 points. That pace over 82 games would have had the Oilers finishing with 78 points, not the 67 that they did in actuality. That still isn’t a number that would get the Oil close to the playoffs but the point is that without the Dubnyk Disaster the Oilers aren’t so far back of the rest of the West that one immediately questions the future of Eakins.
Most coaches coming out of the AHL without a glut of NHL experience aren’t going to get the benefit of the doubt that Eakins will get here. The big thing is that the goaltending wasn’t just subpar in a way that could get a coach fired, it was so bad that the coach and the team had to make major corrections to their gameplan/roster to fix. In many ways you have to feel for Eakins who never got to teach his brand of Defense after the first month.
At first we assumed “The Swarm” was a joke system that might work in the AHL but was obviously untranslatable to the NHL. Looking back, the skaters were never more effective in terms of possession as they were in the beginning few weeks of the season. Sadly though, the puck was going behind Dubnyk so often during that time that the coach, along with so many others, assumed the system was broken or the skaters weren’t ready for it. Now I wonder what the Oiler would have looked like had they been getting competent goaltending in that period.
The biggest reason Eakins can feel safe, at least right now, is that his team cant afford to be given yet another new voice from behind the bench. The club has already gone through so many in such a short span of time. There can be little doubt that the coaching carousel in Edmonton left players like Sam Gagner a little schizophrenic. How could Sam Gagner not have been hearing voices in his head as he entered the Defensive zone?
“In this situation do I do what MacT, Pat Quinn, Tom Renney, Krueger, or Dallas Eakins told me to do? Oh nevermind, they scored.”
Another good reason Eakins should feel pretty safe right now is that the GM let go of men he called friends to give Dallas the staff he wanted. He has Craig Ramsay there as a coach’s coach to bring in an experienced voice and run an NHL Power Play along with the Defense. I sincerely doubt that a month into this coming season Eakins will be let go. Not now that the management has doubled down on him.
The only way I think Eakins is replaced is if his October 2014 looks like his October 2013. And with Scrivens and Fasth improving the situation in Net I don’t see the team’s downfall being the same as it was last year. In addition to that this team loaded up with experienced hockey players still in their primes who have each separately excelled at the part of the game (possession) that the Coach is interested in. All told, I would suggest that the odds of Eakins and the Oilers replicating last year are pretty low.
I think Eakins is safe and I hope he’s confident enough to try to do the things he wanted to do with the Oilers at the beginning of last year but was forced to change.
Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy 
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