Craig MacTravesty

I think it’s safe to say, 18 tumultuous games into the Edmonton Oilers’ season, the time for excuses is gone. As is the norm around this team, expectations were sky high. A couple of guys were brought in who are proven scorers and the Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano, Robert Nilsson juggernaut of scoring known as the kid line are all a year older. Veterans who were hurt are healthy and Mathieu Garon won the number one goalie job. Everyone was giddy and pronouncing them as a team to beat in the Western Conference – and even anointed as a likely winner of the Northwest Division. And then something happened: the team stepped on the ice under the tutelage of coach Craig MacTavish.

So how is it that a team with all this alleged firepower is sputtering so badly? How can they be as mediocre as perennial also ran Columbus? A quick look at some basic team statistics paints an ugly picture as we approach the quarter pole of the season.

Shots on Goal 24th
Shots Against 27th
Goals For 28th
Goals Against 21st
5 on 5 Scoring 25th
Power Play 16th
Penalty Kill 27th
Face offs 28th

The stories leading to the season were about how potent the Oilers offence was going to be and so far, it’s been the exact opposite. Instead of getting to watch an exciting run-and-gun team scoring at will, we see the Oilers outscored by almost three-quarters of a goal per game. That's usually the result when four of the team's top seven scorers, and I use the term loosely, are defencemen.

In many ways, one individual sums up this team. Zach Stortini is the ugly (but not quite Horcoff hideous) face of this franchise. He’s a fighter who can’t fight, to the point where the team has not once, but twice acquired another enforcer. On a team of scorers who can’t score, Stortini fits right in and proves the theory that you don’t have to be a contributor to be an Oiler, you just need to be a Craig MacTavish player. He gives some players so much rope they couldn’t hang themselves off the High Level Bridge. The third longest tenured coach in the league’s player hypocrisies are painful to watch.

The most recent example is Dustin Penner. As the Oilers got ready to leave town, MacTavish threw the big winger under the bus for underachieving. “He's not competitive enough or fit enough to help us, so why put him back in? He's never been fit enough to help us." Harsh statement to be sure, even though there is a reason to say it. However, MacTavish went on to say, “You can’t throw gratuitous ice-time at a player that’s inconsistent.” He says this about one player, but then turns around and gives Sam Gagner, he of 3 points and a minus-4, a spot on the top line and first unit power play.

To be fair to Coach-Seventh-to-Tenth-Place, Gagner has been very consistent. Night after night, he goes out and misses every chance he gets, gives the puck away and looks out of place. On some teams, you have to earn your ice time, but the Craig MacTavish system is simple: preferential treatment to guys who don’t deserve it. Where else is Shawn Horcoff worth top billing? Where else could Dwayne Roloson allow a bevy of bad goals and be immune to criticism? Who else would have used Toby Petersen as a power play quarterback? And of course, we all remember Marty Reasoner.

MacTavish always overvalues the offensive skills of average players while undervaluing and miscasting skilled players. When Erik Cole got to Edmonton, he had a conversation with his new coach. "I told (Oilers head coach) Craig (MacTavish) I played right (in Carolina), but he said, 'I think the best opportunity would be on the left,' so I said, 'OK.'” And really, why wouldn’t you make a guy who just switched teams, cities, hockey markets, and countries switch positions too? No way could that fail.

Buried behind the “KID LINE” is a player that deserves more responsibility than centering the fourth line. Kyle Brodziak’s numbers last year were not far behind those of Gagner, Cogliano and Nilsson, but while they get to play major offensive minutes, he gets the privilege of playing with the enforcer du jour and Marc Pouliot. To add insult to injury, Brodziak got the disservice of being a healthy scratch so Jesse Boulerice could suit up on a dangerous line with Marc Pouliot and Huggy Bear Stortini.

And then there is the system that is as ineffective as it is predictable. Let me diagram virtually every rush this team makes: Oiler forward takes pass at his own blue line, skates just across the opposing blue line, STOPS, tries a cross-ice pass to a line mate that had to stop to stay onside. Result: defenders close in on the player that receives the puck with no speed, turnover, and there goes an odd-man rush the other way. When the play fails way more often than it succeeds, you’d think they’d abandon it and attempt a play that uses their speed to their advantage: the dump and chase. Instead, the Oilers’ mantra is “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” And they’re going on nine years of trying now.

The three goalie system is yet another debacle, but that's a story for another day...and tomorrow is a new day!

Hockey, like any professional sport is a results driven business. Under Craig MacTavish, the Oilers have not finished higher than seventh in the Western Conference. Obviously, before the lockout, the team struggled with the economics of the NHL. Since then, they have finished eighth, twelfth, and ninth. The team that went to the Stanley Cup final only made the playoffs because Vancouver imploded down the stretch. That run was magical, but to evaluate the coach’s work, you have to look at his entire record. Of the three other coaches (Lindy Ruff, Buffalo Sabres; Barry Trotz, Nashville Predators; Jacques Lemaire, Minnesota Wild) who have been with their teams as long as MacTavish, he is the only one to never finish in the top four or reach 100 points in a season…and two of the others have coached their teams from expansion.

“Mediocrity will not be accepted.” - Craig MacTavish

Sources:

Edmonton Sun
Edmonton Journal