Charles LeClaire – USA TODAY Sports
The Edmonton Oilers have seen their playoff hopes getting further and further away, and today fired GM Steve Tambellini.
After a five game winning streak and getting a grasp on the 8th playoff spot, things were good. However the Oilers lost five straight just as quickly, and today Tambellini took the fall for it.
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Replacing him is former bench boss Craig MacTavish, who has no managerial experience. Scott Howson will step into MacTavish’s role of senior VP of hockey operations.
Tambellini was named GM in 2008, replacing Kevin Lowe, the man who just fired him. The Oilers did not make the playoffs in Tambellini’s four seasons.
“We are not where we want to be right now, or where we should be. We feel strongly we make changes right now,” said Oilers’ president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe. ”We need to get better immediately. That starts today with this announcement.”
The Oilers are currently eight points out of a playoff spot with seven games remaining and a record of 16-18-7. This was to be the year the young squad was to compete for a playoff spot and avoid being in the running for a lottery pick for the fourth straight year.
How quickly things can change, as one winning streak quickly turns to a losing streak and heads begin to roll. One would have to think that if the Oilers did not have such drastic inconsistencies over the last month, Tambellini may still have his job.
Over the past three seasons of finishing 30th, 30th, 29th, Tambellini has drafted Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov. It wasn’t the young talent that did him in, but the lack of production from the team’s veterans.
The group of Shawn Horcoff, Ales Hemsky, Ryan Smyth and Ryan Whitney simply did not do enough as the team’s veteran group. They were not expected to be the top producers or be in a front line role anymore, but certainly still more was expected than what they delivered.
There will be plenty of work to do to get the Oilers back into a regular playoff contender, with plenty of holes to fill. They have an impressive and talented core of players there with Jordan Eberle, Hall, Nugent-Hopkins, Sam Gagner, Yakupov and Justin Schultz among others, now the key is to complement them with secondary pieces.
They still do have a couple big ticket items on their wish list on top of that including a top pairing defenseman and a top six power forward. So Lowe, MacTavish and Howson have their work cut out for them.
The talent is there, now they just need the team around it.
