Dallas Eakins: right (?) place at the wrong time.
Today ESPN released a ranking of NHL coaches. To the shock of no one, Edmonton Oilers’ bench boss Dallas Eakins came dead last. This list is rather vague on methodology but it does represent the consensus view of the experts working for one of the most respected and knowledgeable sports network. This ranking also echoes the opinion of many in Oil Country, both experts and amateurs, myself included, who have seen the hire as a big mistake from the very beginning. In my case, I think the hire was wrong not so much because of questions about Eakins potential or ability, not even because of his inexperience, but because of the timing.
The time for the Oilers to break in a new NHL coach was when they were ready to start over in the fall on 2010. Back then fans, media, the league, everyone was ready to be extremely patient and forgive the growing pains. In those days, a rookie coach and a bunch of young players would have been seen with far more forgiving eyes than today. Even GM Tambellini already had a good 2 years under his belt, so not as many positions would have been filled with unproven people as it was the case during the Eakins’ summer.
The coach would have grown with his core players and perhaps different decisions would have been made regarding personnel. A big part of the team’s misfortunes and the revolving door of coaches has been the inability or unwillingness to bring in quality NHL players for a bench boss to work with. It is very difficult to fault these men for the results when it has been well documented that the tools they have been given are either raw or dull.
I am not particularly fond of Dallas Eakins’ tactics nor his handling of ice time, but making him the scapegoat again just does not sit well with me. The way I see it, Kevin Lowe hired unproven Tambellini, who then went on to tank the team to get Taylor Hall (how much of the decision making process up this point has the fingerprints of Lowe is not clear). Tambellini rightfully thanked Pat Quinn for his services and decided to stick with Tom Renney, who had some actual NHL coaching experience plus a history of working with Canada’s best young players. Then halfway through their 5 year self imposed timetable, GM Tambo (again, not sure how much of it was Lowe’s decision) decides to dismiss Renney, even though the core was still raw and the supporting cast was fringe NHL at best.
If Kevin Lowe and co. are to be believed that they envisioned a 5 year plan to bring the Oilers back to competitive grounds, then the dismissal of Renney was either a very stupid part of that plan, or someone panicked and pressed the self destruct button. How else can anyone explain Lowe extending the GM for 2 years, then Tambellini firing the head coach who has been building a program for the core kids to develop in, and then a mere year later Lowe again kicking that GM out and replacing him with a rookie GM, who was actually fired as coach by Tambellini, and then this rookie GM goes and gets himself a greenhorn NHL coach? Does this sound to anyone like an institution making decisions according to plan?. It sounds to me more like a mad scramble of men trying to get to the lifeboats of a sinking ship.
The buck has to stop somewhere, and in this case, it has been Kevin Lowe’s decisions that have cascaded since 2006 and have directly led to the series of unfortunate events that as of today have the Oilers about 3 losses away from another wasted season.
Replacing Tambellini with MacTavish and Renney/Krueger with Eakins in the middle of a failed program was akin to replacing both Eric Belanger with Andrew Ference playing centre and Ethan Moreau circa 2007 with Teemu Hartikainen in the middle of the third period while down 10-1 and expect them to at least get the team into over time.