"If we don't get things going there will be changes and it could be me." Dallas Eakins on his job
— Gene Principe (@GenePrincipe) January 22, 2014This is Dallas Eakins suggesting that if things aren’t sorted soon then it may be his job on the line. The rookie Head Coach is more than halfway through a season that could conceivably result in the lowest point totals the Edmonton Oilers have ever had, and this in an era where the team can get points via the shootout. Should he be safe?
On merit? Probably not.
The Oilers are the punching bag of the West and are rivaled only by the Sabres in terms of ineptitude. A number of players have taken a step backwards this season under Eakins individually and collectively the team is worse today than it was under his predecessor. Nail Yakupov looks like a shadow of the player who ended last year atop the Rookie Scoring race. Justin Schultz is perpetually lost in his own zone and nowhere near as dynamic as he was last year. Jeff Petry, who took big leaps forward last year, is a trainwreck as well. Even Taylor Hall is having significant problems in terms of his underlying possession statistics under Eakins.
If this were any other franchise with any other track record with their Head Coaches then I wouldn’t bat an eyelash before agreeing with Eakins’ self-assessment. But it isn’t any other team with any other track record. The Oilers have burnt through quality head coaches over the past several seasons and the constant turnover has as much to do with the lack of progress being made as anything else.
The Oilers fired their last 2 coaches without cause to do so. Renney was given the mandate to teach and focus on the process. For his troubles he was canned by a failing GM who needed a scapegoat. Krueger was fired after elevating the Oilers out of the lottery against ONLY WESTERN CONFERENCE COMPETITION. For his troubles the new GM decided that instead of finding him support for the task of building this group into a playoff contender he would replace him all together.
This brings us to Eakins. He was brought in as the new head coach, handed a group of assistants that he had no choice but to accept, shockingly hired another former Oiler to be the associate coach, and was handed a team that on paper couldn’t compete with team Iceland from the Mighty Ducks. He’s the 5th coach Gagner has had in 7 years and completely in over his head without a life jacket.
Do I think his job is in danger? No. I actually don’t. I think Eakins has made plenty of mistakes (Swarm, Handling of Yak, Losing the 5 Forward PP) but what is a guy whose best overall Defender is Jeff Petry supposed to do? This team was built to lose, and lose they have done. In fact nobody in the NHL has more regulation losses than Edmonton (31, Chicago has 8).
I understand why Eakins would look back at his performance and assume that he is on the verge of being fired, but I wonder if there’s more to this than his own self-evaluation. I wonder if he’s feeling the heat from management. Does MacT feel this way about his coach? This was HIS guy. Eakins impressed MacT so much that he needed to activate a Skype account to let Krueger know he wasn’t welcome back.
So we wait. We wait for the club’s fortunes to improve or for Katz’ hand-picked management team to dole out some of that accountability he wrote about (so long as it doesn’t fall on a former Oiler).
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