Oilers coaching staff still in limbo

Edmonton oilers coach tom Renney says he told his players Saturday morning to approach the last game of this season like it means something, “like it’s the first game of next year.”

But will Renney be around to see it?

Renney and his coaching staff — Ralph Krueger, Kelly Buchberger, Steve Smith and Fred Chabot — don’t have contracts for next season, and Renney says he’s had no indication whether they’ll be back or whether the vancouver Canucks game late Saturday night was their last act as a group with the Oilers.

There has been no announcement on a new deal for general manager Steve Tambellini, either.

Renney started his NHL coaching career with the Canucks in 1996 and was fired in November 1997 when Vancouver brought in Mike Keenan.

He was instrumental in drafting plenty of the current New York Rangers as their vice-president of player development before replacing Gm/interim coach glen sather in 2004. He stayed there until he was released in February 2009 and replaced by John Tortorella.

Renney joined the Oilers as Pat Quinn’s associate coach a few months later, then got the head job in 2010-11.

“I’m quite happy with that . . . I got to February 22nd in New York and we were 10 games over .500 and we were having a little difficulty,” he said. “I don’t think I’m naive. I try to work hard, I try to be the good soldier that the organization requires of me. I try to let my body of work speak for itself.”

How does Renney judge himself as a coach?

“If I’m going to make an honest assessment, certainly the young players have grown . . . I think the player development has been really good,” he said. “If you look at various parts of our team, there’s improvement for sure, but if you take our start and our finish and sandwich that with the three months in the middle, which is significant, we weren’t good enough.

“There’s lots of reasons why. I won’t go there (to break them down). I’ll let your judgment determine that. Bottom line: We’re an improved team.”