A little more than a year into the (2nd) MacTavish era of the Oilers I'm noticing one key difference between the silver fox and his predecessor Steve Tambellini: He learns from his mistakes.
Mistakes can be a good thing. From an educational standpoint they are incredible opportunities for learning, provided one actually admits the mistake. Failure is a great teacher and the Oilers have been rife with it for years but the lessons remained unlearned.
One of the biggest reasons this rebuild has been going on since they traded Ryan Smyth (don't even try to argue it hasn't) is because it took the hiring of MacTavish before anyone was willing to admit they made a mistake. I struggle to recall even a single time Steve Tambellini ever accepted the responsibility of a poor decision he made, because I'm sure he never thought he made one.
Take, for instance, the 2 ways Tambellini and MacT approached the issue of under performing goaltending.
Tambellini made the not entirely insane mistake of giving the starting job to Khabibulin. It's true that Khabi had a very well documented injury history and slipping numbers but at least he didn't also have an issue with booze and fast cars...oh...
Well, nevertheless, as an Oiler Khabibulin was a disaster, missing time and pucks directed on net with regularity. Despite the obvious problem with continuing to count on the aging and failing Russian keeper Steve Tambellini not only did just that, but he actually professed that Khabibulin was the team's MVP.
Mistake? What mistake?
Lesson? What lesson?
Now MacT had significantly less reason to be doubtful of the starter he inherited. Devan Dubnyk had posted superior numbers to Khabibulin, was of an appropriate age, had progressed well through developmental leagues, and was in a contract year.
Ultimately it only took a couple months into the season before MacTavish recognized his mistake and adjusted course. The decision to give Dubnyk the starting job was not going to be a hill MacT would die on. Where the man who came before him was unwilling to admit defeat and make the necessary changes, under MacTavish the Oilers made swift alterations to their lineup.
Even after making the change to Bryzgalov the team continued to read and react to the situation in net, eventually finding Scrivens and Fasth to occupy the goaltending positions at the NHL levels.
Mistake recognized. Progress made.
But maybe there's too much credit given for recognizing that the Oilers couldn't succeed with Dubnyk floundering in net. Sure, Tambi never could figure out the position either, but that performance was so bad that even the ex-goalie commentators were starting to heap blame Dubnyk's way. (That's how you know things got really bad)
Perhaps more indicative of MacTavish's ability to learn from his mistakes has been his approach to building his Defence.
Last summer the Oilers attempted to exploit market inefficiencies to fill holes on their back end. Trying to find suitable players who had been looked over for reasons that perhaps didn't make a lot of sense.
The club went hard after Defensemen with the wrong passports like Grebeshkov and Belov. One had been an NHLer before and the other was the KHL's best defender, but by virtue of their parentage they were not going to be heavily sought after in North America. Market inefficiency.
The team needed more offence from the back end, and as luck would have it there was a very mobile, swift skating, young, puck moving defender in Larsen that the club was able to snatch up for the price of 1 used up Shawn Horcoff because he had 1 trait NHL teams didn't like. He was too slight. Market inefficiency.
Well the experiment wasn't so much a mistake as it was a crippling failure.
Now a year later the Oilers' Defense has been beefed up, but not with undersized speedsters or cheaply acquired Europeans avoided by 29 other clubs. This time around MacTavish paid the full market value for established NHL players with size.
It's yet to be seen if the Oilers of 2014-2015 will be better than they were in this last year, but there's no denying that the GM has shown an ability to change his methods when they otherwise prove unsuccessful.
And that's a darn good quality to have.
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