Oilers4Life14

ON • 23 Years Old • Male

Eakins is fired! Plan the parade!!!

Do not plan the parade. One cannot blame Eakins on all of Edmonton's losses for the past two seasons. It's as much the players fault as it is Eakins' fault. With all the skill Edmonton has up front, one would not expect the Oilers to be shutout 4 times in 31 games; or to lose 14 of their 15 games, including an 11 games losing streak. As bad as Eakins record showed (36-63-14) he still had some positives. After Ralph Kruger was fired at the end of the shortened season, the 5 on 5 play improved, and the majority of the time spent in and NHL game, a team plays 5 on 5. A negative for the players is that they have had five coaches since the 2008-2009 season.
That many coaching changes does not help a team, especially a young team such as Edmonton. Plays will change, what the players are accustomed will be gone, and this season is a massive failure, if not already.

Now there are a lot of negative as well... Stats do not lie. Here are the point percentages from each coach since the 2008-2009 season. (Craig MacTavish, 0.537 point percentage in 656 games. Pat Quinn (RIP), 0.378 point percentage in 82 games. Tom Renney, 0.415 point percentage in 164 games. Ralph Kruger, 0.469 point percentage in 48 games...) Then comes Eakins... 0.381 point percentage in 113 games behind the bench. Only Pat Quinn had a worse point percentage. Out of the 7 coaches that have coached the Oilers for over 100 games, Eakins had the worst point percentage.
Another negative when Eakins was the coach was the special teams... This season, the power play sits at 28th in the league, sitting at 12.9 percent. Last season, the 2013-2014 season, they sat at 21st in the league, with a 17.0 percentage. While Kruger was coach, Edmonton sat 8th in the league with a 20.1 percentage. The downfall of the power play has been disastrous, considering the skill Edmonton has. The penalty kill hasn't been much better. At the moment Edmonton currently sits at 20th in the league. Killing 79.3% of penalties. Last season was better, they finished at 15th in the league. Killing 82.1% of penalties. In the lockout season, Edmonton killed 83.4% of penalties, and finished in 9th in the league in penalty killing. The lockout season wasn't outstanding compared to the 2013-2014, but it was declining under Eakins.

The most important negative though, is the lack of emotion Eakins showed. After a goal by the other team, he would be flat faced. If Edmonton scored, he'd be flat faced. If Edmonton won a game, he wouldn't celebrate, he'd walk off the ice, punctual, and not give a damn.

The reason why us Oil fans shouldn't be happy? It took so long for MacTavish to actually realize this. It should not have taken 113 games to realize Eakins would not get Edmonton to the playoffs. Ever. All in all though, it has finally been done.

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