At the conclusion of the Edmonton Oilers' 6-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night, I took a long shower and gathered my thoughts. Not only did I feel the need to cleanse myself after the debacle that I had just witnessed, but when you're in the shower you don't feel the need to punch or kick anything, due to the hard surfaces around you and the slippery one beneath you. The shower helped my regain my composure, and alleviated some of the frustration I felt after the Oilers' sixth consecutive loss. The team had endured three separate five-game losing streaks earlier this season, but this is the first time reaching a half dozen, and there's no doubt that the team has hit rock bottom as it nears the midway point of a horrid season.
I conclude that the team has reached the lowest point of the season, because there aren't any excuses to cling to this team around. There aren't any notable injuries plaguing the Oilers at the moment, they're not adjusting to an entirely new system any longer, and there aren't any growing pains as new teammates learn how to play with one another. The Oilers have been outscored 24-6 during this putrid six-game stretch, and they've been shut out in three of their last five games. Granted, those six losses have come against the Bruins, Canucks, Ducks, Kings, Avalanche and Blues -- six of the top nine teams in the NHL standings -- the Oilers haven't even come close to producing an effort that can compensate for the disparity in talent.
During the last month I've made a habit of watching the opposing team's broadcast. It's true that Kevin Quinn and Louie DeBrusk are bland as a brick of tofu, and that's factored into the decision, but it's also been helpful getting a different perspective on the boys in blue. Opposing broadcasters, coaches and players repeat over and over that Edmonton is a very skilled team. They also stress the need to avoid turning the game into a track meet against the Oilers, who can use their speed and skill to generate offense if the game is wide open. Each team in the NHL knows how to approach the Oilers and shut them down, and that's an indictment of the team's coaching staff, which has shown an inability to make in-game adjustments, develop a successful game plan, or produce a consistent effort.
On the flip side, St. Louis bench boss Ken Hitchcock put on a masterful coaching display on Saturday night. The Oilers outplayed and outshot the Blues 14-5 during the first period, but Hitchcock made defensive adjustments to put the clamps on the home team's offense and they resulted in a dramatic shift. During the final 40 minutes, the Oilers were outshot 28-9 and outscored 5-0. It's no wonder people are calling in to demand that Dallas Eakins gets canned. If you want to know what kind of difference a good coach can make, consider this: The Blues were 38-33-11 during the 2010-11 season and didn't make the playoffs. They got off to a 6-7 start to the 2011-12 season before Hitchcock took over, and since then the Blues have gone 96-39-16.
The debate surrounding Eakins is similar to the one regarding Nail Yakupov at the moment. The 20-year-old winger has been a disaster this season, scoring five goals and seven assists in 36 games with a league-worst -26 plus-minus. You'll hear a number of people preaching patience when it comes to Yakupov, pointing to the struggles that fellow first-overall picks Joe Thornton or Steven Stamkos experienced early in their NHL careers. That's a valid argument, but nobody has a crystal ball. At this point, all we can do is judge Yakupov on his performance to date. The same holds true for Eakins. He could turn out to be a fantastic head coach someday, but I'm not sure if Oiler fans have the patience to allow a rookie NHL coach to experience his growing pains on the job.
Can anyone provide a list of players that Eakins has been able to get the most out of during the Oilers' first 38 games of the season? Can anyone point to any specific systems or changes he's implemented to improve the team's play, on either the power play, penalty kill or 5-on-5? Based on Eakins' postgame comments on Saturday night, it's painfully obvious that he's in over his head and doesn't have any answers for how to reverse the fortunes of his struggling club. However, he's phenomenal at throwing his entire team under the bus, putting the blame on his players and accept any accountability of his own. Here's a sampling of Eakins' remarks to the media after the Oilers' 6-0 loss:
"[On the first goal] It's a bad change. It's bad tracking on the second goal, that we've practiced 1,000 times now. We've at least showed 50 clips this year of how we want to track. Third one, D-zone coverage everyone's staring at the puck, that we've worked on 1,000 times. We've shown the video."
To hear Eakins tell it, he's completely blameless when it comes to the Oilers' defensive shortcomings. That would suggest to me that the players are either a) absolutely dense, b) completely uncoachable, or c) terribly unskilled. I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but the same mistakes continue to happen, which leads me to believe that Eakins' message (whatever it might be) isn't getting through to the players.
"It's one thing when the team's way better than you and they take it from you, it's another one when you gift it. I was looking for an answer from the group: How can we do this? How can we play so well and then have these plays turn and put us in the hole? And when you're in a hole in this league you're done. You have to take huge chances to get back in the game, and when you take huge chances you're gonna go deeper a lot of the times."
This statement provides some clear evidence to me that Eakins doesn't get it. The Calgary Flames trailed 4-1 on Saturday but made it a 4-3 game, and didn't do it by "taking huge chances." Same goes for the Phoenix Coyotes and Colorado Avalanche, who each trailed 2-0 on the road but forced overtime. Phoenix won, while Colorado lost. The Anaheim Ducks and New Jersey Devils both trailed 3-1 before rallying for victory on the road, the Nashville Predators trailed 3-0 and forced overtime, and the San Jose Sharks capped the night with a comeback victory after being down 2-0.
Just because his team is incapable of it doesn't mean that comebacks can't happen. In fact, they happened in the majority of the games on Saturday, and if Eakins honestly feels that it's impossible to rally without taking huge chances then I don't trust him coaching the Oilers for another minute. Plus, you can't say that any of the Blues' goals came as the result of the Oilers taking any "huge chances" because they didn't. However, I would rather see Edmonton take some chances and come up short than settle for nine shots over 40 minutes and get booed off the ice.
"I'm not pinning it on him [Bryzgalov] I'm pinning it on the boneheaded mistakes when you've got everything going in your favor. It's like we love misery. 'Hold on a second, things are going too well here, let's have some misery.' I've had enough misery already, and we have some players here who've been here for a number of years. They have to be done with it. There has to be a change in the commitment level and the accountability. Not from me, but from within the room."
I'm not sure what Eakins means when he speaks of things going "too well." The Oilers have held a lead for just over nine minutes during their last six games. That's nine of 360 possible minutes when the Oilers can legitimately say that things have gone well, because in order to win a hockey game you still have to outscore the opposing team. If that doesn't happen, it really doesn't matter how many moral victories you try to pull out of the remaining 351 minutes when you didn't have the lead.
I don't envy Eakins, because he's facing a monumental task as he tries to put the Oilers on a path to respectability. Fans are able to stop attending games, detach themselves emotionally, turn off their televisions, take prolonged showers, and try to forget what they've just witnessed. Eakins is the one who has to come to work each day and try to figure out how to get the most out of his players during the next 44 games of this doomed season. Or Craig MacTavish can decide to find a new bench boss for this perennially plagued franchise. Either way, after Saturday night I don't think Oiler fans care too much any more.
ryan.garner@hockeybuzz.com