MacTavish fires himself from Oilers — again
Oilers vice-president’s departure comes with sense of deja vu linked to 2009 ‘firing’
It was 2009 when Craig MacTavish essentially fired himself as head coach of the Edmonton Oilers despite a text from owner Daryl Katz to radio colourman Bob Stauffer saying hell, no, he wasn’t going to be let go.
MacTavish knew it was time to go and, despite his too loyal owner, effectively gave general manager (Tentative) Steve Tambellini permission to do the dirty deed and announce he’d been relieved of his duties. MacTavish made it easy for the Oilers to do what had to be done. And it appears to have happened again.
On Thursday, Edmonton woke up to the news out of Russia that MacTavish had signed a two-year deal to take over as head coach of the KHL’s Lokomotiv Yaroslavl.
With a lot of observers expecting new general manager and president of hockey operations Ken Holland to make several changes in the front office, it appears MacTavish made it easy for them again.
We’ll likely have to wait a day to hear MacTavish’s explanation for the move as he was flying to Europe and unavailable for comment. But, boy, it felt like deja vu minus the text from Katz.
It was a crazy set of circumstances at the time.
MacTavish, who came within one game of coaching the Oilers to the Stanley Cup in 2006, losing Game 7 of the final, was completing his third straight season out of the playoffs. There were three or four games remaining in the season when, after a practice at Millennium Place in Sherwood Park, MacTavish started talking about his future — or, more accurately, the lack thereof.
I tracked Stauffer down in Disneyland Thursday to refresh me on how that went down from his end.
“Remember, he started talking about having a shelf life and how long of a run a coach had, at what point did the coach get tired of the players and the players get tired of the coach?
“Well, the next night we were discussing that on the air and Daryl texted me during the game that MacT wasn’t going anywhere.”
MacTavish knew it was time. He’d reached his expiration date.
It was slapstick that he had to basically convince the Oilers owner of that, but that’s Katz.
“We both know MacT never got fired as a coach. He basically resigned as the coach,” said Stauffer.
When MacTavish fired himself as coach, he made an interesting detour on his career path.
While he kept himself immersed in the game with a gig as a hockey commentator with TSN, he spent two years earning a master’s degree in business from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.
If you go back to heading to Queen’s University for two years after firing himself as coach in 2009, heading off to coach in the KHL seems to me to be MacTavish being MacTavish.
Isn’t he repeating his own history in heading off for a new experience and a new challenge?
MacTavish has always put the organization first, dating back to when GM/coach Glen Sather brought him to Edmonton as a player after having been released from incarceration at the end of his sentence for vehicular homicide while with the Boston Bruins.
The last old-time hockey player in the NHL to play without a helmet, MacTavish competed in 701 regular-season games with the Oilers and 143 additional games in the playoffs over the course of a 17-year playing career. He won three Stanley Cups as a player in Edmonton and another with a collection of ex-Oilers teammates with the Rangers in New York. He was Edmonton’s head coach for a remarkable 661 games.
MacTavish, after earning his degree from Queen’s, accepted a job offer from his former agent Mike Gillis, who had become GM of the Vancouver Canucks, to coach their AHL farm team, the Chicago Wolves. From there, of course, he returned to the Oilers as GM.
Again, he didn’t so much get fired as he got demoted and worked under Peter Chiarelli as vice-president of hockey operations with a focus on the Bakersfield Condors.
I’ve always had a great deal of admiration for MacTavish even though I’m well aware that coming out of the Decade of Darkness history isn’t going to treat him kindly.
I’ll always wonder how he would have gone down in history if goaltender Dwayne Roloson hadn’t been injured in Game 1 of the 2006 final and MacTavish would have become the only coach of a Canadian-based NHL team to win the Stanley Cup since 1993.
And I’ll always wonder where the Oilers would be going forward if, as GM, he hadn’t made the dumb-ass move to fire Ralph Krueger — by Skype, yet — to hire Dallas Eakins as head coach. Almost for certain, if he hadn’t done that, Connor McDavid wouldn’t be an Edmonton Oiler today.
MacTavish was player, captain, coach and GM of the Oilers before taking on his most recent roles. And, at age 60, here’s wishing him good luck as he tries to bring a Gagarin Cup to Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the KHL.
If whoever ends up with the most hockey experiences wins, then MacTavish leaves Edmonton a winner.
We both know (MacTavish) never got fired as a coach (of the Oilers). He basically resigned as the coach.