If things unfold as I expect they will, it won’t take the dominos long to start tipping in the wake of the Edmonton Oilers missing the playoffs for the third consecutive season.
The Oilers put an exclamation mark on their stretch-drive swoon Saturday with a 4-1 loss in Calgary against the Flames, a result that leaves them 11th in the Western Conference with a 38-35-9 record and out of the post-season for the fifth time in the last seven seasons.
Players will meet at Rexall Place today, tell us one more time what went wrong and then scatter for yet another extended summer. Who’ll be back is yet to be decided, but expect significant changes.
I wouldn’t count on Craig MacTavish being back behind the bench. Every indication I’ve got is MacTavish, despite a vote of confidence from owner Daryl Katz, will step aside after failing to get as much as he expected from a team he picked to be Northwest Division contenders.
With Kevin Lowe stepping back from day-to-day dealings at the start of the season when he became president of hockey operations, it’ll be up to Steve Tambellini to orchestrate the changes that are bound to follow.
MacTavish stepping aside will throw the status of assistant coaches Charlie Huddy, Bill Moores and Kelly Buchberger into question.
Likewise, Tambellini will take a long look at his scouting staff, who are overseen by assistant GM Kevin Prendergast. Again, expect change.
As for player moves, well, that’s a whole other column, and I’ll take a look at that next weekend after some of the dust settles.
Suffice to say, after taking this season to assess a team and a hockey-operations staff that has been built by Lowe since he became GM in 2000, Tambellini will make his mark.
Bad idea In the tradition of Ed (Too Tall) Jones and Mark Gastineau, Eskimos defensive lineman Adam Braidwood proved conclusively, again, that just because you’re big, strong and a professional athlete doesn’t mean you have any business inside a boxing ring.
Braidwood got knocked out 1:07 into his match on the Blunt Force Trauma fight card at the Shaw Conference Centre Thursday by 41-year-old Lee Mein, who’ll never be mistaken for anything but a journeyman. Best stick to tormenting quarterbacks. They don’t hit back.
Farewell to Frank Condolences to the family of former Eskimo Frank Morris, who passed away Friday.
Morris played with three of Edmonton’s Grey Cup teams in 1954, 1955 and 1956, and went on to act as the team’s director of player development from 1973-88. Morris was a real gentleman and a friendly face around the press box at Commonwealth Stadium. He’ll be missed.
While I’m at it Rod Phillips, the radio voice of the Oilers for 36 seasons, hasn’t yet decided if he’ll retire, but he’ll take a few weeks to think it over and announce his decision in May.
