After eight years, the Edmonton Oilers and head coach Craig MacTavish will be parting ways following the team's third consecutive non-playoff season. The Oilers compiled a 301-252-103 during MacTavish's watch, while also playing in the Stanley Cup Final in 2005-06, losing to the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games.
Oilers general manager Steve Tambellini on the move, via Sportsnet, which broke the report:
"We need a new voice, a new start, new expectations, a new discipline. It's time to look forward here," he continued. "This is the right thing for Craig. There was a mutual agreement ... from Craig, myself and Kevin [Lowe, the president of hockey operations]. We need to move forward."Aside from coaching the team for eight years, MacTavish also spent nine of his 17 seasons as a player in an Oilers sweater, scoring 155 of his 213 career goals. His firing is not much of a shock, seeing as how the team collapsed in the final month of the season, closing the season on a 7-11-4 run, including losses in eight of their final 11 games. He also seemed to clash with players, including high-priced, and often times disappointing, free agent acquisition Dustin Penner.
Earlier this season, MacTavish was brutally honest in regards to Penner's play and conditioning saying, "he's never been fit enough to help us."
Heading into this season the Oilers made a couple of high-profile trades, acquiring defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky from the Los Angeles Kings and sending Joni Pitkanen to the Carolina Hurricanes for Erik Cole. The Cole experiment lasted roughly six months as he was sent back to Carolina at the trade deadline in a four-team deal.
As it stands, missing the playoffs in four of the past five seasons -- including three straight -- is all the incentive Oilers management needed to make a change behind the bench.
