Oilers continue to recycle worn management parts
Mactavish replaces Tambellini as GM as owner opts to stick with names from club’s glory days
EDMONTON — Oil change? Under new management?
Does Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz take the NHL club’s loyal and passionate fan base for rubes?
These were obvious questions Monday as Kevin Lowe, the club’s president of hockey operations, introduced longtime teammate and front-office colleague Craig MacTavish as the team’s new general manager, immediately replacing Steve Tambellini, who was sacked on Sunday after four years on the job.
Also on board as part of the “new” leadership group is Scott Howson, Lowe’s longtime second-in-command (2000-07) from his own regime as GM. Howson had re-upped with the Oilers a few weeks ago after his own 5½-year tenure as GM of the Columbus Blue Jackets ended with his firing.
The proximate cause of Tambellini’s dismissal was a dreadful performance by the Oilers on Saturday night in losing 4-1 to the moribund, dead-in-the-water Calgary Flames.
But Lowe told the assembled media the change had been coming for a while as the young, talented team failed to perform as a legitimate contender for a playoff berth, save for the recent five-game winning streak that lifted the Oilers to within a single point of eighth place in the Western Conference.
Five straight losses later, the outcome — a reunification of the Boys on the Bus at the wheel of this oncegreat franchise — will not sit well with a sizable chunk of the faithful, who will see the same men who achieved some success, such as that magical Stanley Cup run in 2006, but also failure, as in the seven nonplayoff seasons that followed.
An emotional Lowe addressed that issue square on, as is his nature.
“We have two types of fans: We have paying customers and we have people that watch the game that we still care about,” Lowe said. “But certainly the people that go to the games and support (the Oilers), we spend a lot of time talking to them, delivering our message.
“I think it’s safe to say that half the general managers in the National Hockey League would trade their roster for our roster right now. And in terms of the group that messed things up … you’re talking about a group that had a team one period away from winning the Stanley Cup.”
No one was questioning the acumen of Lowe, MacTavish and Howson, but even a casual fan would have to wonder how many kicks at the can this trio are entitled to before Katz would opt for fresh blood, new sets of eyes, hockey people with a different vision.
In Tampa, for example, ownership brought in Detroit Red Wings Hockey Hall of Famer and executive-in-training Steve Yzerman three seasons ago and gave him carte blanche to turn around that franchise. In Montreal, an NHL laughingstock last season, owner Geoff Molson recruited Marc Bergevin — highly thought of but untested as a manager — and gave him the freedom to assemble a management team of the best people he could find.
The Canadiens’ fortunes have been transformed as a result.
In Edmonton, Katz, a peripheral member of the Boys on the Bus entourage back in the glory days of the 1980s, once again put his club in the hands of his pals, Lowe and MacTavish.
There are members of the Canadian Senate and the College of Cardinals in Rome who have less job security than these two Oilers greats.
MacTavish and Lowe both suggested the struggles of the club in recent years are a residual effect of the team’s successful past.
“You know the cycle of that,” Lowe said. “You know that we chased a dream for a few years for our fan base, like a lot of teams do. And then, at some point in that time frame, we realized that’s a bad plan and we made a change.
“We’re finishing Year 3 of that (rebuild) plan. Lastly, there’s one other guy, I believe, in hockey today that’s still working in the game that has won more Stanley Cups than me.
“So I think I know a little bit about winning, if there’s ever a concern.”
For trivia buffs, the promotion of MacTavish to GM came four years after he resigned to Tambellini as head coach of the Oilers and 14
“Any time you win five Cups, there’s a certain amount of mess that comes on the tail end.”
NEW OILERS GM CRAIG MACTAVISH
years to the day after Oilers immortal Wayne Gretzky, then a New York Ranger, played his final NHL game in Canada.
Gretzky was named all three stars that emotional night in Ottawa as his legendary career wound down to a close.
That past is intensely ever-present with the Oilers franchise, which is understandable to some degree. But whether fans will buy into the same old gang being entrusted with cleaning up the mess they themselves were largely responsible for making is quite another issue.
“Well, I think any time you win five Stanley Cups, there’s a certain amount of mess that comes on the tail end of all that success,” MacTavish said.
“It’s the cyclical nature of the business.
“We kind of semi-jokingly talk about the price we’re still paying for all that success in the 1980s and the early ’90s that still has a residual effect over where we are right now.”
Again, many of those skeptics would question whether Lowe or MacTavish have paid any significant price for being at the helm as that Stanley Cup finalist team of ’06 sank to the bottom of the standings, finishing 30th, 30th and 29th that previous three seasons on pace for a 23rd-place finish this disappointing season.