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Oilers Fire GM Steve Tambellini, Promote Craig MacTavish

  • Frank Doyle's Author profile. Frank Doyle

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With the Edmonton Oilers sputtering down the stretch of the NHL regular season, somebody had to pay the price. Former general manager Steve Tambellini will be that man. The team has a news conference scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Eastern Monday to announce Tambellini’s dismissal. Former Edmonton senior VP Craig MacTavish will be promoted to general manager, while Scott Howson will become the team’s new assistant general manager.

Just two weeks ago, the Edmonton Oilers were in the thick of the playoff race. However, a late slump now has them waiting for next year – again. The Oilers have lost five straight games, scoring just four goals over that span. With young guns like Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov in the roster expectations were very high this season, so it’s not surprising to see a major move in the wake of this late-season slide. Moving forward, that trio will be the backbone of this franchise but Edmonton’s becoming increasingly impatient with these growing pains. Edmonton’s top line of Eberle, Hall and Nugent-Hopkins hasn’t notched a single point during the slump.

“We don’t have a point in five games. That’s unacceptable. We play 20 minutes a night and we don’t have a goal. That’s embarrassing,” Hall recently told reporters. “I don’t think we saw that coming by any means. We have to find some balance in our scoring.”

In a weird turn of events, it was actually Tambellini who fired McTavish (then the Oilers’ coach) three years ago. At any rate, while the future is still bright for the Oilers, this is a move that further strengthens the team’s new focus. Oilers fans have been waiting around for “the future” for a while now and this is a move that says that mediocrity is no longer acceptable for this franchise. There have been rumours circulating that Tambellini would have been fired at the end of the season if the Oilers didn’t make the playoffs. Jumping the gun on that decision is probably a good move, setting the bar before the end of another season. That way, when the team comes back next year, there aren’t any further distractions – or excuses.