Dallas Eakins was fired as coach of the Edmonton Oilers, who have lost 15 of 16 games and are well on the way to missing the playoffs for the ninth consecutive season. General manager Craig MacTavish will coach the team until the job is given to Todd Nelson, who is being promoted to interim head coach from Edmonton's American Hockey League affiliate in Oklahoma City. MacTavish did not say when he would return to the front office. MacTavish called Eakins an "excellent coach" but said something had to be done after the losses piled up. The general manager acknowledged his share of the blame, saying there was "blood all over my hands" because he "put the lineup together."
"I'm not here to absolve myself of accountability," MacTavish said at a news conference. The Oilers, once the jewel of the NHL, won five Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1990. Now, MacTavish said, all aspects of the organization, including him, remain under scrutiny. Edmonton has 19 points through 31 games, last in the Western Conference. The Oilers went 36-63-14 under Eakins in parts of two seasons, including 7-19-5 this year. Nelson is the Oilers' fifth head coach in seven years. The firing came just over a week after MacTavish gave Eakins a vote of confidence, saying then the coach still had command of the dressing room and it was up to the players to turn the season around.
"The losses have an emotional toll on everybody in the organization, at least they should, in particular the coaching staff," MacTavish said. "I think the fact we weren't able to get any traction at all after that, it led me to believe the time was right for a coaching change." The poor play has resulted in poor attendance for a team that has not made the post season since 2006. Rows of empty seats are common at Rexall Place and tickets can be had for fire sale prices. Hockey operations boss Kevin Lowe and owner Daryl Katz has not escaped criticism. Eakins, with a four-year deal, was seen as an X's and O's wunderkind, on the cutting edge of the new generation of coaches. It didn't translate to the ice. The Oilers finished with the third-fewest points in the NHL in 2013-14 with a record of 29-44-9 in the one full season under Eakins. They were 7-19-5 this year, but the nature of the losses was what rankled fans on social media and talk shows.
