Craig MacTavish Makes Boldest Move Yet

Craig MacTavish held a media availability today. And it was bold. I give him credit for having the guts to stand there and offer no apologies of any kind for 9 years of miserable hockey in Edmonton. Even if he has only been GM for 19 months, he speaks for the whole organization and instead of holding it accountable he had the courage to stand there and blame things mostly on his players’ level of execution. But the boldest statement of the morning, and possibly of the entirety of the  history of pro sports, was to stand in front of the mic and declare that this club has improved and that outsiders to the organization just fail to see it because it does not reflect on tangibles, like wins. Very bold statement indeed, or very stupid, it is hard to distinguish at this point.

Basically everything that happened before his time as GM, he quickly distanced from. He took shots at Steve Tambellini for bringing in poor players and making bad trades while defending his own sorry hires. As for the current place in the standing, MacTavish just threw all his players under the bus and blamed it on them. How arrogant is that? Blaming the players for a losing culture ingrained by years of corporate mediocrity only adds fuel to the fire. The notion that the players simply have to get better and all is looking good just shows this is the wrong man for the job. Everyone top to bottom must have a share of the blame here.

This is not a development league, this is it, the big stage, if players like Nikitin are still making the mistakes they have at this stage of their careers, they are not going to improve much more. And if all players across the locker room are having struggles, I think the coaching staff has something to do with that as well. When asked where would it be time to blow up the plan, MacTavish got visibly upset at the reporter who asked the question and defiantly responded by saying the core was not going to be torn apart and changing every player on the team was not a real option. When Mark Spector asked a similar question, MacTavish just went full “oh no ya didn’t” and was quick to point out he was out of the organization during the core of the Tambellini era. It never occurred to him cleaning up house in upper management and scouting was the real question there. To his credit he did sort of, kind of, if one squinted hard, admitted the bad drafting was due to their poor scouting.

But you don’t bite the hand that feeds, and that was the problem with this tire fire of a media availability. It was not the place of the GM to come and address the state of a franchise that has failed for as long as the Edmonton Oilers have. Craig MacTavish was right in saying he has not been here for all those years of misery. This address should have been done by the owner, the one man with the authority to asses all aspects of the organization in the time frame in question. Kevin Lowe would have been another option, but if MacTavish was going all “I know you are but what am I?”, Lowe might have punched some one outright. I suspect the next time we hear from an Oilers’ executive, it will be Bob Nicholson announcing some real changes. That is my hope anyways.

As expected, this was yet another Oilers exercise in futility, full of hot air and empty words. Other than the opening line of “I am to blame” there was no effort and no mention of anything even resembling an apology to the Oil Country faithful for what is shaping out to be one of the worst seasons in the history of the franchise. Instead, again, as expected, we saw a nervous, combative, defensive and arrogant former Edmonton Oiler who gas given a position he had no experience in. The one item he was right about was his covert admission of a lost season, saying draft picks are out of the question regarding trades right now and that there is nothing he can do in the present to change the course of the season.

Thus the entire presser can be summarized as follows:

• It’s our fault for not being able to see the improvements;
• It’s the players fault for not playing like MacTavish wants them to;
• It’s Tambellini’s fault for being terrible at his job, and;
• Everything is going according to plan, albeit a bit behind.

Sometimes, it is better to stay at home and not say a word.